Women treated for breast cancer who are considering taking Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) should be cautious when using published research to inform their decision. An article published today in the journal Breast Cancer Research reveals that qualitative studies on the recurrence of breast cancer in breast cancer survivors undergoing HRT are unreliable.

There are two main types of research studies – qualitative and quantitative. Each type is used to answer different research

Umbilical cord-blood transplants save the lives of newborns with a rare genetic disorder called Krabbe’s disease and helps their brains develop more normally, a study led by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University Medical Center concludes.

“Infants with Krabbe Disease lack an enzyme necessary for normal myelination of the brain and peripheral nervous system at the time when myelination is occuring most rapidly. The infants become i

Leveling insulin/sugar effect could point to therapeutic role in diabetes

In this obesity-obsessed world, the dream ingredient must be something that tastes good enough to be a condiment or flavoring and yet somehow helps us keep our weight down. Consider hydroxycitric acid (HCA), known variously as Brindle berry or Malabar tamarind, which is used in Indian and Thai food as a condiment and flavoring agent.

In Indian folk medicine as a dried powder or tea it’s indi

Extolling the safety and benefits of childhood vaccinations may only serve to strengthen and entrench the positions of those philosophically opposed to them, says new research led by University of Toronto scientists.

“Changing attitudes about pediatric vaccination can be challenging,” says Dr. Kumanan Wilson, professor of medicine and health policy, management and evaluation at U of T, internal medicine physician at Toronto General Hospital, University Health Network, and lead aut

Engineers at The University of Texas at Austin have found a way to modify a plastic to anchor molecules that promote nerve regeneration, blood vessel growth or other biological processes.

In the study led by Dr. Christine Schmidt, the researchers identified a piece of protein from among a billion candidates that could perform the unusual feat of attaching to polypyrrole, a synthetic polymer (plastic) that conducts electricity and has shown promise in biomedical applications. When

Analysis of plate internal structure rules out thermoregulation

The bizarre plates and spikes that lined the backbones of the long-extinct stegosaurs were probably extreme examples of the often elaborate and colorful displays developed by animals to recognize fellow members of their species, according to an international team of paleontologists.

The team’s analysis of stegosaur plates lends support to a growing consensus among paleontologists that the weird adornments of

A gene that signals a yeast cell to make bread rise and mice to eat a better diet also helps selectively silence the immune system, researchers have found.

The finding may help explain how a mother avoids rejecting a genetically foreign fetus and provides a new target for treatments to help the immune system ignore other desirables like a transplanted organ. “Think of this like a radio transmitter and a receiver,” says Dr. David H. Munn, pediatric hematologist-oncologist at the

When primitive nerve cells begin forming an eye in the mouse embryo, they are programmed to build a retina. But the ability to see depends upon connecting the retina to the brain via the optic nerve. Unless these embryonic cells are given the right cue at the right time, they mistakenly form a huge eye that consists entirely of retina and lacks the optic nerve.

The discovery that the retina is the ’default’ setting for development in the embryonic eye comes from research

Finding may have ramifications for vaccines, autoimmunity and atherosclerosis

Scientists have uncovered a new method the immune system uses to label foreign invaders as targets to be attacked. Researchers showed that the immune system can brand foreign proteins by chemically modifying their structure, and that these modifications increased the chances that cells known as lymphocytes would recognize the trespassers and attack them. “Now that we know that some T cells need to see

In mammals, sperm from the male determines the sex of the offspring. In birds, however, it is the female’s sex chromosome that determines offspring sex. Now, Cornell University researchers think they understand the mechanism that several bird species use to bias the sex ratios of their offspring toward female.

By experimenting with domestic chickens, they have determined that the presence of higher-than-normal levels of the hormone progesterone during the first meiosis — t

Researchers have found a gene they suspect plays an important role in triggering the blight that wiped out Ireland’s potato crops a century-and-a-half ago.

And the pathogen that contains this gene still causes massive amounts of agricultural damage throughout the modern world– on the order of billions of dollars each year. The scientists describe the gene, called Avr3a, in a study that appears online in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Scienc

Penn State chemical engineers have demonstrated proof of concept for a new protein purification process that combines ultrafiltration’s high throughput with high specificity achievable through electrically-charged dyes that bind to the protein.
Ultrafiltration is widely used now in the pharmaceutical industry, by milk and whey producers and in water purification. The new process promises to broaden the scope of ultrafiltration to more fine separations.

In the proof of c

The Cancer Department at the la University of Navarra University Hospital has acquired a Siemens, latest-generation lineal accelerator. This is the first centre in Spain to install this advanced radiotherapy apparatus which is equipped with multilaminas, minimultilaminas and portal vision.

The new radiotherapy equipment has the Moduleaf system as an extra feature minilaminas of 2.5 mm – the thinnest that currently exists in this technology – that can shape irregular parts of tumo

Over £1/2 million has been raised by The Prostate Project, a Surrey based charity, to create a new centre for prostate cancer research in Guildford. The Prostate Project, the University of Surrey and the Royal Surrey County Hospital have today signed an agreement where The Prostate Project will donate £550,000 to establish a Chair of Urological Oncology. The post, and its supporting research team, will be based at the Postgraduate Medical School at the University of Surrey, which is also providing

A Buckinghamshire company whose intelligent robots can assist surgeons during complex operations has raised £1.025 million with the help of Oxfordshire Investment Opportunity Network (OION), Europe’s leading technology business angel network, and investment from Hoegh Capital and Octopus Asset Management. Armstrong Healthcare Ltd, a world-leading producer of image-guided surgical robots, will use the funds to support the development of its three main products through clinical trials to launc

This year, more than 145,000 people will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer (CRC). Despite its high incidence, CRC is one of the most preventable and treatable forms of cancer when found early. Studies presented today at Digestive Disease Week® 2005 (DDW) explore three novel technologies for colorectal cancer screening that provide innovative techniques that could potentially overcome limitations of existing screening methods. “Colonoscopy is currently the gold standard for detection of colore