Muscle aches and pains, whether from stretching, strenuous exercise or just normal wear and tear, can put a crimp in your day, a limp in your step and be an actual pain in the neck. But no matter the severity, stem cells in the skeletal muscles called satellite cells play a key role in repairing...
Category: <span>Research Updates</span>
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Researchers use spider venom compound to treat paralysis
The complex of the Nav1.4 channel from human muscle cells with the Hm-3 toxin extracted from the venom of the Heriaeus melloteei spider. (A) The interaction of Hm-3 (blue/purple) with the first voltage-sensing domain (D1) of the channel A team of Russian scientists together with foreign colleagues, reports that the venom of the crab spider...
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Promising cell study provides hope of effective treatment of Parkinson’s disease
For the first time, medical doctors and researchers could alleviate serious symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, which causes shaking, muscle stiffness and slow movements in those affected. However, before these symptoms appear, and during the course of the disease, many patients experience sleep disorders, gastrointestinal problems, anxiety, and depression. Unlike the symptoms in the motor system,...
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Antioxidant found to wind back the clock on blood vessel function by up to 20 years
Much mystery surrounds the physiological processes by which humans age, but scientists are learning more all the time. With this knowledge come new possibilities around how we can not only slow them down, but possibly even reverse them. A new breakthrough at the University of Colorado is the latest advance in the area, demonstrating how a chemically...
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Targeting molecules called miR-200s and ADAR2 could prevent tumor metastasis in patients with colorectal cancer
Researchers at SBP target miR-200s and ADAR2 in regulating metastasis of colon cancer cells. Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer worldwide and the third-leading cause of cancer-related deaths. The main cause of death in patients with colorectal cancer is liver metastasis, with nearly 70% of patients eventually developing a liver tumor. Recent research...
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Glowing contact lens could prevent a leading cause of blindness
Worn during sleep, the lens interrupts the process that destroys cells of the retina. Hundreds of millions of people suffer from diabetes worldwide, putting them at risk for a creeping blindness, or diabetic retinopathy, that comes with the disease in its more advanced stages. Existing treatments, though effective, are painful and invasive, involving lasers and...
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Leading genetics study method may need reconsideration, significant distortions discovered
Many conclusions drawn from a common approach to the study of human genetics could be distorted because of a previously overlooked phenomenon, according to researchers at the Department of Genetics and Genomics Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and collaborators from Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute. Their conclusions and...
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Researchers Identify Essential Genes for Pluripotent Stem Cells Through CRISPR-Cas9 Screening
NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Researchers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel have built a reference library of essential and growth-restriction genes in haploid human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) that they believe will reveal key aspects of cellular essentiality. In a study published yesterday in Nature, the researchers used a recently discovered group of haploid hPSCs to generate...
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Chemotherapy without Pills or Needles
A promising new class of lung-cancer therapies can simply be inhaled, minimizing the side effects to other, healthy organs Imagine you’ve just been diagnosed with lung cancer. Only instead of prescribing a physically challenging course of radiation or chemotherapy, your oncologist hands you an inhaler with at-home treatment instructions, followed by office check-ups to monitor...
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How ‘ninja polymers’ are fighting killer superbugs
With advances in stem cell research and nanotechnology helping us fight illnesses from heart disease to superbugs, is the fusion of biology and technology speeding us towards a sci-fi future – part human, part synthetic? In Ridley Scott’s seminal blockbuster Blade Runner, humanity has harnessed bio-engineering to create a race of replicants that look, act...