Test could improve detection of prion disease in humans
...tain no DNA or RNA. Instead, prions are an altered type of protein normally found within cells in humans and other organisms. These abnormal prion proteins appear to convert other, normal prions to an abnormal shape. Many scientists now believe this conversion process leads to several dementing diseases i...Study finds new designer drug is potent treatment for chronic myelogenous leukemia
...e remissions, and patients can develop a resistant type of Bcr-Abl that no longer binds to Gleevec at all. To circumvent these shortcomings, researchers at Novartis determined the crystal structure of Bcr-Abl, and then constructed compounds that would lock into the receptor more securely than Gleevec. In...Uric acid may help reduce effects of spinal cord injury, Jefferson researchers find
...pecific cells such as neutrophils," he explains, a type of white blood cell and a key player in the body's inflammatory response to injury. "We know neutrophils make peroxynitrite, which is a major trigger in opening the blood-brain barrier." Dr. Hooper says peroxynitrite is known to contribute to cell da...Wine keeps women's hearts beating healthily
...ohol at all. But further analysis showed that the type of alcohol consumed was important. HRV was highest among women who drank wine, even after taking account of other influential factors, such as age, weight, and smoking habit. Beer and spirits had little impact on HRV. The favourable effects on HRV m...Stem cell therapy for spinal injury
...ouraged the formation of oligodendrocytes, another type of glial cell that forms the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons. The small number of astrocytes that developed from the neurogenin-2-bearing stem cells corresponded to the lack of growth of pain axons. The greater number of oligodendrocytes that w...Penn joins major NCI research initiative to advance breast cancer therapies
...and computational biologists," says Chodosh. "This type of endeavor requires a group of scientists with a ...s have already shown that patients with a specific type of stomach cancer who respond to the drug Gleevec show a dramatic change in glucose metabolism withi...Engineers develop biowarfare sensing elements for future highly sensitive nerve-gas detectors
...oxide used for sensing DMMP. Other sensors of this type consist of crystals with many imperfections, and recover slowly because molecules previously detected can become trapped in these imperfections. Shi constructed the accompanying sensor components using traditional computer chip design and fabricatio...NYU psychology researchers show how attention enhances visual perception
... location, confirming the reflexive nature of this type of attention orienting. The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity while observers performed this task inside the MR scanner housed at the NYU Center for Brain Imaging. This technology allows scientist...Gender bias in child growth evaluations may miss disease in girls
...child's risk of other autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes or thyroiditis. On the other hand, she added, overzealous evaluation of boys who are short but healthy may carry its own social costs: "Evaluating and treating healthy boys reinforces the idea that their height is a medical problem, which ...Aetiology of congenital heart disease explained
..., known as AV heart block, develops when a certain type of antibody is transferred from the mother to the foetus during pregnancy. The antibodies are targeted against endogenous proteins and cause the inflammation and calcification of the foetal cardiac conduction system. One in three of such cases are fa...Why North America is not a rhythm nation
... lose this ability if they are exposed to only one type of rhythm when they are growing up. (Similar conclusions have been made about how people learn languages: Infants are more flexible in processing different word sounds and speech patterns from a variety of speakers, but it isn't long before they sett...Non-lethal weapons focus of research study
...se and record the severity of the injuries and the type of non-lethal weapon used in each case based on the use of force report and medical records generated by each use. "This injury epidemiology study will document the injuries sustained by 750 to 900 patients around the country," said Bozeman. "This is...Children's Hospital Oakland opens new $5.6 million infectious disease lab
...the highest safety and security standards for this type of medical research. "The CIVD's BL-3 status means that when we constructed this laboratory we had to meet some of the highest safety standards established by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention ...Migraine-sparked vision loss may increase stroke risk in women; Migraine
...searchers say it is not clear whether a particular type of visual disturbance is more closely linked with ... with stroke, but ours is the first to examine the type of aura symptom and the likelihood of stroke," Giles said. These findings need independent confirma...Least protection offered to those most at risk of sudden cardiac death
... Implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs), a type of pacemaker inserted into the heart, can prevent sudden cardiac deaths. Yet in those regions with the highest death rates from heart disease, rates of ICD use are conversely the lowest. 100,000 people die each year from sudden cardiac death in the ...Older people get the big picture faster, and they are less inhibited
...sa Betts and Christopher Taylor, suggests that one type of inhibitory neurotransmitter may not have as much effect in old brains as in young brains. However, the researchers caution that although such a change makes older people perform better on this task, the same change likely leads to increased diffic...Stat5 protein inhibits spread of breast cancer cells
...ogy, the team identified Stat5 as a biomarker of a type of breast cancer that is associated with a favorable prognosis in patients. In fact, in breast cancer patients whose tumors had not yet spread to the nearby lymph nodes, loss of Stat5 was associated with a nearly 7.5-fold increased risk of death fro...World-first living donor islet cell transplant a success
...ants could allow many more desperate patients with type 1 diabetes to get successful islet transplants," says Dr. Shapiro. "The donor operation is relatively safe, but is not entirely devoid of serious potential risk," he added. A shortage of donor islet cells is the biggest obstacle preventing implement...HIV vaccine trial breaks ground for future research
...t of the HIV envelope glycoprotein, similar to the type of vaccine used to develop a vaccine for hepatitis B. The vaccine was tested in a double-blind, randomized study of healthy participants who did not use intravenous drugs. The volunteers were men who have sex with men or women at high risk for hetero...Stroke patients receive better care when hospitals 'get with the guidelines'
...mm said that the GWTG-Stroke program addresses the type of "rapid cycle improvement" needed to target this problem. "It's the first program that has been able to show this much improvement in stroke care so rapidly across this scope and scale of patients and hospitals," he said. "Guidelines by themselv...