Monday, January 5, 2009

Posts Tagged ‘National Institutes Of Health’

Researchers Set Sights On Early Detection Of Pancreatic Cancer

Saturday, December 6, 2008 17:18

Funded by a $2.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, a team of UGA Cancer Center researchers is studying the fluid secreted by the pancreas to determine if subtle changes in proteins and the sugars that adorn the proteins, known as glycans, can herald the presence of ...

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New Nanoparticle Could Provide Simple Early Diagnosis Of Many Diseases

Saturday, December 6, 2008 17:14

The nanoparticle polymer is made of peroxalate esters. A fluorescent dye (pentacene) is then encapsulated into the polymer. When the nano particles bump into hydrogen peroxide, they excite the dye, which then emits photons (or light) that can be detected (Credit: Image courtesy ...

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Breakthrough Promised In Detecting Atherosclerosis

Saturday, December 6, 2008 16:55

If the technique, which was tested on animal models in the study, proves viable in humans, it could pave the way for therapies that could prevent the condition from progressing and bringing on coronary heart disease and stroke, two of the nation’s most lethal diseases. Such therapies could be applied ...

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Deadly Nipah Virus Can Be Transmitted To Offspring During Pregnancy

Saturday, December 6, 2008 14:38

In an article in the Sept. 15 edition of the Journal of Infectious Diseases, published ahead of print on Aug. 14, Dr. Christopher Broder, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at USU, along with his Australian colleagues, reported the first experimental evidence that Nipah virus can be vertically transmitted in cats, ...

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Mice Provide Important Clues To Obsessive-compulsive Disorder

Saturday, December 6, 2008 14:34

SAPAP3 knockout mouse has a raw bald patch on its face from compulsive grooming behavior. (Credit: Guoping Feng, Ph.D., Duke University) Duke University Medical Center investigators, in their basic research into how individual brain cells communicate with each other, discovered serendipitously that mice with ...

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DNA Provides Clues To Outcome In Patients With Liver Cancer

Saturday, December 6, 2008 13:42

In a new study, Snorri Thorgeirsson and colleagues from the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, shed some light on this, showing that the extent to which the genome of a person’s liver cancer cells is modified by a process known as methylation correlates with clinical outcome. They therefore suggest that ...

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Fighting Malaria By Tricking Mosquito’s Sense Of Smell

Saturday, December 6, 2008 3:05

A colored scanning electron microscope image of a female malaria mosquito’s head shows its impressive array of olfactory sensors. The two feathery outer appendages are the antennae. The proboscis is in the middle, flanked by the maxillary palps that specialize in detecting odors ...

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Once Ocular Melanoma Has Spread, New Drug Combination May Help

Saturday, December 6, 2008 1:09

The drugs -- decitabine, which can turn on certain genes in cancer cells, and interferon gamma, an immune system protein -- may work together to cause cancer cell death. "Metastatic uveal melanoma, or melanoma that originates in the eye and spreads to other parts of the body, has been very ...

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New ’Knock-out’ Gene Model Provides Molecular Clues To Breast Cancer

Friday, December 5, 2008 18:46

Yuxin Feng, David Manka, PhD, and Sohaib Khan, PhD, have developed a estrogen receptor gene knock-out mouse model. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Cincinnati) About a decade ago, U.S. scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) developed a standard estrogen receptor (ER) ...

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Device To Predict Proper Light Exposure For Human Health

Friday, December 5, 2008 17:16

By wearing this small, wireless device being developed by scientists in Rensselaer’s Lighting Research Center, users can monitor their daily rest and activity pattern as well as exposure to circadian light. The tool will have the capacity to communicate with the user in ...

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Stem Cells In Tendons That Regenerate Tissue Identified In Animal Model

Friday, December 5, 2008 16:55

The research team was able to isolate these cells and regenerate tendon-like tissue in the animal model. Their findings hold tremendous promise for the treatment of tendon injuries caused by overuse and trauma. Tendons, the tough band of specialized tissues that connect bone to muscle, are comprised of ...

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What The Schizophrenia Risk Gene Does For A Healthy Brain

Friday, December 5, 2008 15:30

It turns out that this gene, called disc1, makes a protein that serves as a sort of musical conductor for newly made nerve cells in the adult brain, guiding them to their proper locations at the appropriate tempo so they can seamlessly integrate into our complex and intertwined nervous system. ...

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Global Survey Reveals Significant Gap In Meeting World’s Mental Health Care Needs

Friday, December 5, 2008 14:42

Yet, the world’s mental health care needs are largely going unmet, especially in less developed nations but also in high-income countries, according to results from a new survey of 17 countries conducted as part of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) World Mental Health Survey Initiative. The results of the initiative, ...

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Hunger Hormone Fights Aging In The Thymus

Friday, December 5, 2008 13:45

New data generated by Dennis Taub and colleagues from the National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, suggest that in mice, thymic involution is caused by a decrease upon aging in thymic expression of both a hormone that is better known as a stimulator of food intake (ghrelin) and its receptor. These ...

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Manic Phase Of Bipolar Disorder Benefits From Breast Cancer Medication

Friday, December 5, 2008 13:24

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) who conducted the study also explained how: Tamoxifen blocks an enzyme called protein kinase C (PKC) that regulates activities in brain cells. The enzyme is thought to be over-active during the manic phase of bipolar ...

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Ethical Issues Of Scientific Research In Developing World Examined

Friday, December 5, 2008 13:02

They range from problems such as government corruption to complex questions surrounding community and public engagement, cultural acceptability and gender. The study, conducted by an international team of bioethics experts from the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health in Toronto (MRC), was supported by the Grand Challenges in Global Health (GCGH) initiative, ...

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National Effort To Preserve, Restore Fertility In Women With Cancer Underway

Friday, December 5, 2008 12:14

The Oncofertility Consortium, funded for five years by the National Institutes of Health, features participants from five universities and comprises researchers, physicians, engineers, educators, social workers and medical ethicists. "Biomedical research has helped save the lives of many women battling cancer," explained Richard Stouffer, Ph.D., director of the research team at ...

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Gene Abnormality Tied To Getting Parkinson’s Disease At A Younger Age

Friday, December 5, 2008 10:01

For the study, researchers analyzed the genes of 278 people with Parkinson’s disease and 179 people without the disease. The study found 14 percent of the people with Parkinson’s disease carried mutations in the glucocerebrosidase (GBA) gene compared to only five percent of people without the disease. The ...

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Flu Virus Trots Globe During Off Season, Mixes With Other Viral Strains

Friday, December 5, 2008 6:28

Transmission electron micrograph, negative stain image of the influenza A virus. The influenza A virus does not lie dormant during summer but migrates globally and mixes with other viral strains before returning to the Northern Hemisphere as a genetically different virus, according to ...

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Low Vitamin D Linked To Higher Risk Of Hip Fracture

Friday, December 5, 2008 6:24

Jane A. Cauley, Dr.P.H., professor of epidemiology, and colleagues evaluated patient data on 400 women enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study Cohort who had experienced hip fracture, confirmed by their medical record, over a median of 7.1 years. Levels of 25 hydroxyvitamin D, an indicator of vitamin D ...

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Genetic Code Of Parasitic Worm That Causes Elephantiasis Revealed

Friday, December 5, 2008 5:27

The life cycle of Brugia malayi, the causal agent of Filariasis (Elephantiasis).* (Credit: Courtesy of CDC/Alexander J. da Silva/Melanie Moser) Mosquitoes spread the larvae of these parasitic nematodes from human to human, placing at risk more than a billion people who live in places ...

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Monitoring Diet: Nutritionists To Evaluate Cell Phone Pictures

Friday, December 5, 2008 4:51

Carol Boushey, an associate professor in the Department of Foods and Nutrition, said the project would expand on a technique already in use by adding a strong scientific grounding. Currently, dieters can subscribe to online sites that monitor eating habits by critiquing photos they send of their meals. The idea ...

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Genetic Associations From Genome-wide Scan For Cardiovascular Disease Traits Available

Friday, December 5, 2008 3:44

The analyses, which examine genetic differences that potentially affect the risk for cardiovascular disease and other disorders using data collected from FHS participants, are described in a series of articles recently published in BMC Medical Genetics. Known as the Framingham 100K genome-wide scan, the results also are freely available through ...

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Possible Genetic Risk For Fetal Alcohol Disorders

Thursday, December 4, 2008 6:58

Reported Sept. 21 in Biological Psychiatry, the findings represent the first evidence of a genetic risk for fetal alcohol spectrum disorder - a condition that is characterized by profound mental retardation in its most severe form, but which is also associated with deficits in learning, attention, memory and impulse control. By ...

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Eat Less To Live Longer: Calorie Restriction Linked To Long Healthy Lives

Thursday, December 4, 2008 6:55

Electron micrograph of a single mitochondrion showing the organized arrangement of the protein matrix and the inner mitochondrial membranes. (Credit: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services/National Institutes of Health) Now, reporting in the September 21 issue of the journal Cell, researchers from Harvard Medical ...

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How To Assess Benefits Of Influenza Vaccine In The Elderly

Thursday, December 4, 2008 4:54

In an article in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) describe how sources of bias in other, non-randomized studies have inadvertently resulted in an exaggeration of the flu vaccine’s value in preventing flu deaths in the elderly. The authors point to the need for ...

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Nosespray Vaccine Using Aloe Vera Has Exciting Potential, Researcher Says

Thursday, December 4, 2008 4:15

Even though trial treatments are being used to treat bird flu in humans, technically termed the H5N1 virus, the vaccine has the potential for numerous other uses, such as for the common flu shot, says Dr. Ian Tizard, professor of pathobiology in the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences. ...

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Almost One-third Of US Children Regularly Take Dietary Supplements

Wednesday, December 3, 2008 23:46

Most U.S. adults--including 57 percent of women and 47 percent of men--take dietary supplements, according to background information in the article. Professional organizations emphasize diet as the best source of nutrients for children; however, physicians may recommend supplements for certain children at risk of deficiency. Mary Frances Picciano, Ph.D., of the ...

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Drug Has Ability To Cure Type Of Leukemia

Wednesday, December 3, 2008 22:43

Mathematician Natalia Komarova and biologist Dominik Wodarz also developed a tool that eventually could help doctors determine which combination of drugs would be most beneficial to a CML patient, and they determined why, in some cases, Imatinib does not block cancer growth. CML is a quick-progressing cancer that starts in ...

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Hypothermic Technique Being Tested To Treat Pediatric Head Injuries

Wednesday, December 3, 2008 22:13

Dr. Pam Okada is the local lead investigator of an $11.5 million multicenter clinical trial examining the effectiveness of induced hypothermia as a therapy for brain swelling in children who have suffered severe traumatic brain injuries. (Credit: Image courtesy of UT Southwestern Medical Center) The ...

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