USC study finds differences in survival according to lymphoma type in post-HAART era

When it comes to treating HIV-positive patients with blood cancers, not all lymphomas are created equal, according to hematologists from the University of Southern California. Although physicians have treated all types of lymphomas in HIV/AIDS patients with the same drug regimens, researchers from the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and Hospital say the drugs are significantly more effec

New research from the University of Pittsburgh shows the human body has difficulty adjusting to dramatic time changes such as those experienced by working shifts or traveling across time zones.

The NASA-funded study, detailed in this month’s Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine, was designed to examine the protocols the space agency uses to assign sleep-wake schedules that ensure astronauts are always able to handle their demanding tasks at peak performance. The findings

Diabetics with mental disorders do not have as good blood sugar control as diabetics without mental illness and are more likely to suffer one or more diabetes complication including loss of kidney function, loss of sensation in the feet, and visual problems (including blindness) than diabetics without mental illness, according to a study published in the December issue of Medical Care.

“This study provides a solid foundation for further work into understanding whether provider, pa

Ground breaking research in understanding the characteristics of human skin at millimetric waveband (MMW) frequencies is being conducted at Cranfield University – academic partner to the Royal Military College of Science at Shrivenham, Oxfordshire.

Leading the research study, Dr Clive Alabaster of the Radar Systems Group at Cranfield University, says: “This research study is important because MMW frequencies are increasingly being used in a large number of applications in radar

Babies who never sleep on their stomachs don’t learn behaviors that may lessen their risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found. Even so, the researchers caution that infants should always be placed on their backs to sleep.

“The first few times babies who usually sleep on their backs or sides shift to the prone (lying face down) position, they have a 19-fold increased risk of sudden death,” says

Bone marrow transplantation can cure lymphomas and leukemia, but in about half of the cases transplanted immune cells wind up attacking the patient’s body, as well as the cancer.

In response to this problem, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have developed a technique that can virtually eliminate this life-threatening complication, known as graft-versus-host disease, without compromising the transplanted cells’ effectiveness against cancer.

The combination of two pills — thalidomide and dexamethasone — may be an effective alternative to the intravenous chemotherapy commonly prescribed to patients with multiple myeloma, according to a large collaborative study conducted by the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group and led by a Mayo Clinic investigator. More than 15,000 Americans are diagnosed annually with multiple myeloma, an incurable cancer of the bone marrow.

Mayo Clinic researchers announced their findings today du

Both PET and CT useful for judging biologic changes

Not only can positron emission tomography (PET) help evaluate treatment for gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) by revealing biologic changes such as how the tumor processes the fuel that makes it grow, but CT can indirectly reveal biologic changes as well by analyzing the tumor’s density, say researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

For the study, researchers evaluated 17

Measuring bone marrow fat (BMF) along with bone mineral density (BMD) can better predict weakening of bones than either test done alone, a new study indicates. BMD measurement with DEXA is presently the most commonly used parameter for determining bone weakening. Researchers have long questioned whether there may be other measurable bone components that influence mechanical stability of bone.

The study, conducted by researchers at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington DC, s

Rhinosinusitis, the inflammation of the mucous membrane of the nose and sinuses, has increased in both prevalence and incidence. Health officials believe that this disorder, also known as sinusitis, causes significant physical symptoms, negatively affects quality of life, and can substantially impair daily functions. It is now estimated that rhinosinusitis affects approximately 31 million Americans each year.

Recognizing a need for evidence-based rhinosinusitis guidelines, five n

By exploiting an HIV protein that readily traverses cell membranes, Carnegie Mellon University scientists have developed a new way to introduce a gene-like molecule called a peptide nucleic acid (PNA) directly into live mammalian cells, including human embryonic stem (ES) cells. The work, published online December 2 in Chemical Communications, holds considerable promise in genetic engineering, diagnostics and therapeutics.

“Our results show that PNAs could be effectively deliv

A recent finding by a North Carolina State University biochemist advances the fundamental biology of how genetic information, encoded in DNA, is decoded for the production of proteins.

Dr. Paul F. Agris, professor of biochemistry at NC State, and academic colleagues from England and Poland show concrete evidence in favor of the 1966 “Wobble Hypothesis” offered by Francis Crick, the co-founder of the DNA molecule and its double-helix structure, and Agris’ own “Modified Wobble

Seven papers that expand upon recent research into the origin of tetrapods and their invasion of the land during the Devonian period appear in the September/October 2004 issue of Physiological and Biochemical Zoology.

Although the fossil record of this transition remains far from complete, new discoveries have increased the resolution of the morphological sequence, documented the relative rapidity and geographic distribution of the tetrapod appearance, and fueled new controversy

The hippocampus skews ’right,’ especially in males, plus the righty-lefty distinction may go back 5 million years

New MRI-based studies present more evidence that the brains of chimpanzees are human-like in terms of the relationships among brain asymmetry, handedness and language, according to research undertaken at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta. Understanding our evolutionary cousins helps us to understand what makes us human. Two related reports appear

Gene function in mammals can be quickly and reliably predicted using a high-throughput analysis of patterns of RNA expression, according to an article published today in Journal of Biology. This challenges the conventional view that tissue-specificity is the best predictor of function, and could speed up the quest to understand whole genomes, in humans and other mammals, by decades. The authors have made their mouse dataset openly accessible online to the research community.

Tim H

Hand preference and language go hand-in-hand, or do they? According to researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center of Emory University, handedness is not associated with the language area of the brain, as has been the accepted scientific thought throughout history. Rather, handedness is associated with the KNOB, the area of the brain known for controlling hand movements in primates and, now, for determining handedness in chimpanzees. The researchers report their groundbreaking find