Repairing major damage to the derma is a difficult problem facing plastic surgeons. But now researchers at Linköping University have hit upon a highly promising method. By injecting tiny balls of gelatin, they have managed to get various types of cells to grow spontaneously in the areas where new tissue needs to be generated.

Instead of moving skin from other parts of the body or operating in prostheses of non-biological material, it is becoming more and more common for plastic s

Schizophrenia has been attributed to everything from genetic predisposition, brain chemistry, sufferers’ home environment and even cat-borne viruses, but no consistent causal pattern has ever been identified. As a result, treatment outcomes for today’s patients are not very different from those of patients treated 100 years ago.

According to Richard Bentall, Professor in Experimental Clinical Psychology at The University of Manchester, the problem is that the psychiatri

St. Jude researchers say dental problems caused by radiation, chemotherapy should be treated before a child undergoes immunosuppression as part of bone marrow transplantation therapy

Many children who undergo bone marrow transplantation (BMT) as part of cancer treatment already have dental abnormalities that leave them vulnerable to potentially life-threatening bacterial infections, according to investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. A report on this study

As more parents choose home remedies for their children’s gastrointestinal complaints, the question arises, which ones really work?

Kathi J. Kemper, M.D., M.P.H., a pediatrics professor at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, and the author of “The Holistic Pediatrician,” has written the cover article for Contemporary Pediatrics magazine on which herbs and dietary supplements can help children with nausea, constipation and similar gastrointestinal (GI) problems.

The amount of blood flowing into the brain may play a larger role in the development of dementia than previously believed, according to a study in the September issue of the journal Radiology.

Researchers from Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to examine the brains of elderly patients with and without dementia related to Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease. As expected, MR images showed that the patients with late-on

Altered protein could help deliver drugs and shape the growth of engineered tissue

Collagen often pops up in beauty products and supermodel lips. But by mating collagen with a molecular hitchhiker, materials scientists at Johns Hopkins hope to create some important medical advances. The researchers have found a simple new way to modify collagen, paving the way for better infection-fighting bandages and a treatment to block the formation of unwanted scar tissue. In addition, tiss

A Duke University chemist has found differences in how ultraviolet light affects the photochemistry of human pigments that he says may explain why red-haired people are more prone to skin cancer than those with black hair.

Duke chemistry professor John Simon and his collaborators used a broadly-tunable ultraviolet laser and a special microscope to distinguish between the oxidation potentials of pigments of redheaded and black-haired people. Oxidation potentials measure how li

Montreal researchers identify new anti-cancer, anti-infection response control mechanism

Dr. André Veillette, a researcher at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM), and his team will publish in the upcoming issue of the prestigious journal Nature Immunology of Nature Publishing Group, a discovery that could significantly advance the treatment of cancers and infectious diseases. Current treatments frequently achieve only limited results with these types of di

The first rhino ever conceived by artificial insemination has died in the womb a few hours before its birth. The death occurred on August 9 in the Budapest Zoo. The mother of the unborn rhino, Lulu (aged 25), had suffered from uterine bleedings. The reason for the complication was presumably a partial separation of the placenta 12 hours prior to birth, says scientist Dr. Thomas Hildebrandt of the Berlin-based Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW). He and his colleagues from the IZW had dev

Using a water droplet 1 trillion times smaller than a liter of club soda as a sort of nanoscale test tube, a University of Washington scientist is conducting chemical analysis and experimentation at unprecedented tiny scales.

The method captures a single cell, or even a small subcellular structure called an organelle, within a droplet. It then employs a powerful laser microscope to study the contents and examine chemical processes, and a laser beam is used to manipulate the cel

X-rays yield pictures and chemical clues that may help trace contaminants, thwart terrorists

As part of the search for better ways to track and clean up soil contaminants, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University have developed a new way to “image” the internal chemistry of bacteria. The technique will allow scientists to “see” at the molecular level how soil-dwelling microbes interact with various pollutants. T

When it comes to fighting stains, “greener” is better. Chemists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill say they have developed an alternative material for making stain-resistant coatings that does not lead to the contamination of the environment with PFOA, a pervasive chemical that has been termed a “likely carcinogen” by an EPA advisory board.

PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) is used directly in the manufacture of the coatings used in nonstick cookware and is also pro

An unusual type of antibiotic being developed by chemists at Notre Dame University shows promise in defeating deadly “superbugs” — highly drug-resistant staph bacteria that are an increasing source of hospital-based infections. The novel antibiotics, which could some day save lives, were described today at the 230th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

The new antibiotics are synthetic forms of cephalosporin, a broad-spectrum a

A class of anticancer drugs currently being evaluated in phase 3 clinical trials may also be an effective treatment for Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS), a fatal genetic disorder that causes premature aging. If upcoming studies in a HGPS mouse model validate the results of experiments in cultured cells in the laboratory, a clinical trial of these drugs in HGPS children may begin as early as next spring.

Brian Capell, a New York University medical student participating i

Advances in the molecular modeling and simulation of complex biological systems are enabling researchers to study how certain microbial systems may play an important role in the remediation of contaminated soils. One target is Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a common microbe in sediments and the subsurface. This bacterium is also an important opportunistic pathogen that can cause fatal infections in people with a weakened immune systems.

T.P. Straatsma is leading a team of researchers model

A new laboratory method for quickly detecting active anthrax proteins within an infected blood sample at extremely low levels has been developed by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and the National Cancer Institute.

Current detection methods rely on injecting live animals or cell cultures with samples for analysis and require up to several days before results are available. Describ