If you’ve ever suffered from mononucleosis (commonly known as mono), you know how unpleasant it can be. Sometimes called “the kissing disease,” the mono virus is transmitted through saliva and causes extreme fatigue, sore throat, fever, headache and a skin rash. Mono actually originates from the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), and now a new study has shown that it is linked...
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Single injection treats hemophilia B for life, in proof-of-concept study
LA JOLLA–(May 1, 2018) For most people with hemophilia B, whose bodies can’t properly form blood clots, constant injections to replenish their clotting factors are a way of life. But now, Salk researchers have demonstrated in mice that hemophilia B can be treated for life with one single injection, containing disease-free liver cells that can produce their...
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Technique that characterizes different immune cell groups in individual patients could revolutionize cancer treatments
A plot of all the different possible phenotypes of T cells before without (left) vs. with (right) immune checkpoint blockade immunotherapy. The colored dots represent T cells that are tumor neoantigen specific and colored by which tissue A pioneering technique developed by A*STAR researchers can identify and profile specific groups of immune cells that target cancer cells...
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New leads on treating dementia and Alzheimer’s
A new study by scientists in Australia and the US provides an explanation for why clinical trials of drugs targeting proteins in the brain that were thought to cause dementia and Alzheimer’s have failed. The study has opened the way for potential new treatments with existing drugs. Published online in the journal Human Molecular Genetics, the researchers...
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Lab Chat: How livers rebuild their damaged plumbing
New research highlights how liver cells regenerate missing or damaged plumbing by becoming a new cell type. Here’s what Stacey Huppert of Cincinnati Children’s told me about the work, published in Nature. What did you discover about how livers repair themselves? We wanted to understand whether the bile ducts, or the plumbing of the liver,...
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Bacterial toxins wreak havoc by crippling cellular infrastructure
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Bacterial toxins can wreak mass havoc within cells by shutting down multiple essential functions at once, a new study has found. The discovery could one day open the door to exploring better ways to fight life-threatening infections, said lead researchers Elena Kudryashova and Dmitri Kudryashov of The Ohio State University. The study focused on...
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Researchers defy biology: Mice remain slim on burger diet
We are our own worst enemy when it comes to developing obesity. The body is naturally geared to assimilate energy from the food we eat and store it as fat until it is needed. This is the result of millions of years of evolution under the pressure of low food availability. But today, where many...
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Bowel disease study points to new therapies for lifelong conditions
Treatments for incurable bowel conditions may be a step closer following the discovery of a key molecule associated with disease flare-ups. Researchers say the finding helps to explain the underlying cause of disorders such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. The discovery could also lead to new tests to help doctors monitor patients’ condition and help...
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Glioblastoma: A new treatment for this deadly brain tumor?
New research brings fresh hope of a new treatment for patients with glioblastoma, after identifying a way to halt the growth of this life-threatening brain tumor. Researchers may have found a way to halt the growth of deadly glioblastoma brain tumors. Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston have identified the mechanism by...
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New research uncovers ‘stability protein’ for cancer treatment
UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN THE FACULTY OF HEALTH AND MEDICAL SCIENCES Researchers from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences have characterized a new protein that is important to the genetic stability of our cells. It may be significant for the development of new drugs against genetically determined diseases like...