by Virginia Commonwealth University More than a decade of research on the mda-7/IL-24 gene has shown that it helps to suppress a majority of cancer types, and now scientists are focusing on how the gene drives this process by influencing microRNAs. Published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the findings...
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Restoring this enzyme’s function protects against heart disease in lupus and beyond
The enzyme that produces nitric oxide shows promise as a new therapeutic target for heart disease in lupus, report Medical University of South Carolina researchers in Lupus Science & Medicine; it could also be relevant to heart disease more broadly MEDICAL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA Patients with lupus, an inflammatory disease in which the body’s immune system...
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Model learns how individual amino acids determine protein function
Technique could improve machine-learning tasks in protein design, drug testing, and other applications MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY A machine-learning model from MIT researchers computationally breaks down how segments of amino acid chains determine a protein’s function, which could help researchers design and test new proteins for drug development or biological research. Proteins are linear chains of amino acids, connected by...
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Diabetes treatment may keep dementia, Alzheimer’s at bay
Study finds progression of dementia and Alzheimer’s signature tangles are much faster in people with untreated diabetes UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Patients on medication for type 2 diabetes may be keeping Alzheimer’s disease away. USC Dornsife psychologists have found that those patients with untreated diabetes developed signs of Alzheimer’s disease 1.6 times faster than people...
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MD Anderson study may explain why Immunotherapy not effective for some patients with metastatic melanoma and kidney cancer
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS M. D. ANDERSON CANCER CENTER White blood cells known as B cells have been shown to be effective for predicting which cancer patients will respond to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy, according to a study at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Study results will be presented April 2 at...
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A Cheap Diabetes Drug Shows Potential as a Life-Extension Therapy
But pharmaceutical companies have little financial incentive to research it. Off-Label Angel investor Ariel Poler thinks he’s discovered a way to live a longer, healthier life — and it’s only costing him $2 a month. Millions of people with diabetes take the drug metformin to help lower their blood sugar levels. But in recent years, Poler and a growing...
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Handheld CRISPR Device Diagnoses Genetic Disease in 15 Minutes
The device could make genetic testing easier and more accessible. Dan Robitzski Standardized Testing To help make genetic screening easier and more accessible, scientists built a handheld device that uses CRISPR gene-editing technology to scan for mutations much more easily than existing labs can. The device, which Keck Graduate Institute bioengineer Kiana Aran told Futurism...
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Can We Get Better at Forgetting?
Some things aren’t worth remembering. Science is slowly working out how we might let that stuff go. Whatever its other properties, memory is a reliable troublemaker, especially when navigating its stockpile of embarrassments and moral stumbles. Ten minutes into an important job interview and here come screenshots from a past disaster: the spilled latte, the...
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The Brain Grows New Nerve Cells in People up to 87 Years of Age
In a paper recently published in the journal Nature Medicine, a group of researchers from Spain detail their study of the brains of deceased people, indicating that our “neck-tops” are perfectly capable of growing brand new cells well into advanced age. This finding comes as somewhat of a surprise in light of the recent debate...
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How nerve cells control misfolded proteins
RUHR-UNIVERSITY BOCHUM Researchers have identified a protein complex that marks misfolded proteins, stops them from interacting with other proteins in the cell and directs them towards disposal. In collaboration with the neurology department at the Ruhr-Ubiversität’s St. Josef-Hospital as well as colleagues at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, an interdisciplinary team under the...