Research published in Science sheds light on cancer mechanisms, could lead to potential treatment approach

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have identified how a single aberrant cell can duplicate to form cancerous tumors, suggesting a specific protein mechanism as a target for the treatment of cancer, they report in a paper titled “Spindle Multipolarity Is Prevented by Centrosomal Clustering,” published in the Jan. 7 issue of Science.

The team, led by Wi

Adults with pre-diabetes can lose up to 3 percent of their body weight using diet, exercise and behavioral strategies, according to a systematic review of studies that analyzed weight-loss strategies for pre-diabetics.

Weight loss is recognized as one of the better ways to keep pre-diabetes from turning into full-blown diabetes, experts say.

In their examination of nine studies that included a total of 5,168 participants, Susan L. Norris, M.D., M.P.H., of the Centers for

Glia appear essential for ’hair cells’ responsible for hearing and balance

Traditionally viewed as supporting actors, cells known as glia may be essential for the normal development of nerve cells responsible for hearing and balance, according to new University of Utah research. The study is reported in the January 6, 2005 issue of Neuron and is co-authored by scientists at the University of Washington.

“Using zebrafish as a model, we’ve demonstrated that gl

Large, multi-center clinical trial planned in Lou Gehrig’s disease

A family of antibiotics that includes penicillin may help prevent nerve damage and death in a wide variety of neurological diseases, including Lou Gehrig’s disease, dementia, stroke, and epilepsy, Johns Hopkins researchers have found. The antibiotics’ beneficial effects, discovered in experiments in the lab and with mice, are unrelated to their ability to kill bacteria, the researchers report in the J

Scientists have developed a new “biological smoke detector” to help protect against potential bioterrorist attacks, according to a study published in the Jan. 1 edition of Analytical Chemistry, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

High-traffic facilities like airports, office buildings, rail stations and sporting arenas serve hundreds of thousands of people each day, making them particularly susceptible to silent and invis

Bone-disorder experts from across Europe have turned to the web in a unique alliance that will improve patient care.

The European Skeletal Dysplasia Network (ESDN), which was developed by The University of Manchester, links eight institutions in six different countries by means of a secure web portal. The hi-tech referral system means a patient, say, in Italy could have their case referred to a bone specialist in Belgium and a genetics expert in Manchester, while a laboratory

Whether it’s the look of love, happiness, or the look of fear, humans use facial expressions to communicate important information to one another. But which parts of the brain read these cues, and how do they do it? A paper in this week’s Nature by a group of international scientists, including Professor Philippe Schyns from the University of Glasgow, offers new insights into how we recognize fear in people’s eyes.

The study focuses on a case study of a 38-year-old w

Millions of patients suffering from liver damage (cirrhosis) and failure may benefit from research by the Universities of Southampton and Edinburgh that could lead to new life-saving treatments. There is currently no cure for liver cirrhosis and a patient’s only hope of survival is to receive a liver transplant.

The Southampton scientists from the University’s Infection, Inflammation and Repair Division of the School of Medicine, in collaboration with colleagues from the Univers

A portable imaging device currently in development by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) will produce clear, highly detailed pictures of bone and tissue, helping physicians manage bone health in space and on Earth. The Scanning Confocal Acoustic Diagnostic system, or SCAD, will enable doctors to determine the rate of loss and plan treatment options with the aid of high-quality images, taken noninvasively.

Studies of cosmonauts and astronauts who spent months o

Exposure to secondhand cigarette smoke increases the risk of developing cervical tumors, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and School of Medicine. The researchers’ results also corroborated past studies that found an association between active cigarette smoking and cervical neoplasia—the growth of a tumor. The concept of the Hopkins study was the result of collaboration between several researchers supported by the Maryland Cigarette Restitution Fund. T

A new computer-aided detection (CAD) system can help radiologists detect polyps in colons that contain contrast-enhanced fluid, says a new study that appears in the January 2005 issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.

“As far as I know, we are the first to publish a CAD algorithm to find polyps submerged in contrast-enhanced colonic fluid; other CAD algorithms do not yet deal with this problem,” said Ronald M. Summers, MD, PhD, of the National Institutes of Health and lead autho

A look of fear on another person’s face is instantly recognizable. The split-second ability of the amygdala, a small, almond-shaped structure deep in the brain, distinguishes fear in facial expressions. In particular, the amygdala relies heavily on visual information contained in the eye region to detect fear.

A new study by scientists at the University of Iowa, the California Institute of Technology and their colleagues sheds more light on how the amygdala works. The study,

Aggressive therapy with statins — drugs that inhibit cholesterol synthesis — works better than moderate statin therapy in reducing fats and proteins in the blood that have been linked to atherosclerosis, a new multi-center study concludes. Statins’ effects on both complex compounds appear beneficial in cutting patients’ cardiovascular risks.

Atherosclerosis is the progressive disease process, often called hardening of the arteries, in which blood vessels slowly narrow with brain

A study led by Dr. Herbert Kaufman, Boyd Professor of Ophthalmology at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, published in the January issue of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, found that 98% of the participants who are healthy individuals with no evidence of any symptoms did in fact shed herpes simplex virus type I (HSV-1) DNA in their tears and saliva at least once during the course of the 30-day study. The study was undertaken to assess the frequency of

Beware not the ides but the start of March – and April and May and every month. In the first few days of each month, fatalities due to medication errors rise by as much as 25 percent above normal, according to new research by University of California, San Diego sociologist David Phillips.

Published in the January issue of Pharmacotherapy, the journal of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, the study is the first to document a beginning-of-the-month spike in deaths attribut

Two specific areas in chromosome 7 and chromosome 16 have been associated with photosensitivity, an epilepsy-related trait, by a team of European scientists in the January issue of Human Molecular Genetics. Photosensitivity or photoparoxysmal response (PPR) is associated with the most common epilepsy of genetic origin –Idiopathic Generalised Epilepsy (IGE) – and comprehension of the genetics behind it is important to a better understanding of IGE and epilepsy in general.

Epilepsie