A discovery about how mucus thickness is regulated could help to improve airway-clearing treatment options for people with chronic respiratory conditions such as asthma, cystic fibrosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) At a glance Researchers have discovered the reason why the excessive amounts of mucus produced by patients with respiratory illnesses is thicker than...
Scientists at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences have discovered a new way for T cells to attack cells infected by viruses or deranged by cancer. Published online by the journal Science on Thursday 7 May 2020, the new research from the Dustin Group describes the...
By Reginald Davey Reviewed by Dr. Mary Cooke, Ph.D. Biological organisms are incredibly complex machines made up of innumerable parts working in complementary ways. Understanding the complex, intricate interactions between tissues and cells is, therefore, key to a holistic understanding of the organism as a whole, and over the centuries that have encompassed the science...
AMHERST, Mass. – A molecular biologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who has for decades studied the nightmarish group of fatal diseases caused by prions – chronic wasting disease in deer, mad cow in cattle and its human analog – credits a middle-of-the-night dream for a crucial insight, a breakthrough she hopes could lead...
People with the mental health condition known as body integrity dysphoria (BID) often feel as though one of their healthy limbs isn’t meant to be a part of their bodies. They may act as though the limb is missing or even seek its amputation “to feel complete.” Now, researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology...
Bethesda, MD – Findings from a new study examining human and canine brain cancer cells suggest that cannabidiol could be a useful therapy for a difficult-to-treat brain cancer. Cannabidiol, or CBD, is a non-psychoactive chemical compound derived from marijuana. The study looked at glioblastoma, an often-deadly form of brain cancer that grows and spreads very...
CREDIT: GIORGIA MENEGONI, SAPIENZA, UNIVERSITY OF ROME Bethesda, MD – In a new animal study examining Alzheimer’s disease, researchers found that disease progression could be slowed by decreasing neuroinflammation in the brain before memory problems and cognitive impairment were apparent. The new findings point to the importance of developing therapies that target very early stages...
CREDIT: COPYRIGHT UC REGENTS/UC DAVIS HEALTH A protein known to expand blood vessels — key to controlling conditions like high blood pressure — actually has different functions in males and females, new UC Davis Health research shows. Conducted using arterial cells from mice, the study is the first to identify sex-based distinctions in how the...
New research by scientists at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine Temple University (LKSOM) shows, however, that gains in functional recovery from these injuries may be possible, thanks to a molecule known as Lin28, which regulates cell growth. In a study published online in the journal Molecular Therapy, the Temple researchers describe the ability of...
The mammalian cell lines that are engineered to produce high-value recombinant-protein drugs also produce unwanted proteins that push up the overall cost to manufacture these drugs. These same proteins can also lower drug quality. In a new paper in Nature Communications, researchers from the University of California San Diego and the Technical University of Denmark...
