Viruses flourish in guts of healthy babies

16-Sep-2015 - Bacteria aren't the only nonhuman invaders to colonize the gut shortly after a baby's birth. Viruses also set up house there, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. All together, these invisible residents are thought to play important roles in human ...

Replicating liver cells for fast drug testing

14-Sep-2015 - Scientists have developed a new technique that produces a user friendly, low cost, tissue-engineered pseudo-organ. The chip-based model produces a faithful mimic of the in vivo liver inside a scalable fluid-handling device, demonstrating proof of principle for toxicology tests and opening up ...

Designer molecule shines a spotlight on mysterious 4-stranded DNA

14-Sep-2015 - A small fluorescent molecule has shed new light on knots of DNA thought to play a role in regulating how genes are switched on and off. DNA is typically arranged in a double helix, where two strands are intertwined like a coiled ladder, but previous research has shown the existence of unusual DNA ...

Biomarker helps predict survival time in gastric cancer patients

09-Sep-2015 - Gastric cancer poses a significant health problem in developing countries and is typically associated with late-stage diagnosis and high mortality. A new study in The American Journal of Pathology points to a pivotal role played by the biomarker microRNA (miR)-506 in gastric cancer. Patients ...

Magnetic wormhole connecting 2 regions of space created for the first time

07-Sep-2015 - "Wormholes" are cosmic tunnels that can connect two distant regions of the universe, and have been popularised by the dissemination of theoretical physics. Using present-day technology it would be impossible to create a gravitational wormhole, as the field would have to be manipulated with huge ...

Research shows testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals

01-Sep-2015 - Brain imaging shows that testosterone therapy given as part of sex reassignment changes the brain structures and the pathway associated with speech and verbal fluency. This result supports research that women in general may deal with speech and interaction differently than men. The sex hormone ...

New optical method promises faster, more accurate diagnosis of breast cancer

Researchers report on data-based method to replace manual inspection of tissue

28-Aug-2015 - A new optical method for more quickly and accurately determining whether breast tissue lesions are cancerous is described by University of Illinois researchers. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Chicago researchers Hassaan Majeed, Mikhail Kandel, Kevin Han, Zelun Luo, Virgilia ...

Relapse, poor survival in leukemia linked to genetic mutations that persist in remission

27-Aug-2015 - For patients with an often-deadly form of leukemia, new research suggests that lingering cancer-related mutations - detected after initial treatment with chemotherapy - are associated with an increased risk of relapse and poor survival. Using genetic profiling to study bone marrow samples from ...

PET imaging detects fast-growing prostate cancer

24-Aug-2015 - A molecular imaging biomarker is able to detect fast-growing primary prostate cancer and distinguish it from benign prostate lesions, addressing an unmet clinical need. The new research, published in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, is significant for patients with suspected prostate cancer that ...

Optical 'dog's nose' may hold key to breath analysis

09-Jul-2015 - University of Adelaide researchers are developing a laser system for fast, non-invasive, onsite breath analysis for disease, potentially enabling screening for a range of diseases including diabetes, infections and various cancers in the future. The researchers have developed an instrument they ...