Low doses of the drug mifepristone shrink uterine fibroid tumors and greatly improve the quality of life in women who suffer from pain and heavy bleeding, according to a University of Rochester study published in the December Obstetrics and Gynecology journal.
A nationwide blue-ribbon panel of health care experts recommends that hospital plans for a surge of disaster victims should begin with a strategy to empty their beds of relatively healthier patients.
Mobile DNA, which inserts foreign genes into target cells, is a powerful force in the march of evolution and the spread of disease. Working with the lambda virus and E. coli bacteria, Brown University biologists have solved the structure of a six-protein complex critical to performing this gene-grafting surgery. The technique they developed could be used to reveal the structure of other critical protein complexes, landing the work on the cover of Molecular Cell.
CQU Rockhampton is now the headquarters of an Australian research team seeking better ways to prevent respiratory infections which kill millions of people worldwide every year.
“Nanoscale science and engineering promise to be as important as the steam engine, the transistor, and the Internet, and have the potential to revolutionize all other technologies” according to Neal Lane, former science advisor to US President Bill Clinton. “But that outcome is not guaranteed.”Dr. Lane made his remarks today at a Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies event at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
The December issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine carries specific conclusions and recommendations on how the medical community can harness the power of molecular imaging and therapy to manage diseases and improve the quality of life for patients. “Shaping the Future: The 2006 SNM Molecular Imaging Summit” provides the first-ever look at molecular imaging’s potential — as seen by medical professionals, scientists, industry representatives, and funding and regulatory officials — in a special expanded section of the society’s flagship journal.
Screening children for risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease can help identify parents at risk for the condition, providing an opportunity for medical intervention in both children and their parents, according to research at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC.
Researchers from Lehigh and Princeton Universities join with colleagues from Egypt and Portugal to take aim at osteoporosis and other bone disorders. Their goal is to tailor a biocompatible glass so it can serve as a scaffold that promotes the regrowth of damaged or diseased bone.
Max Planck researchers in Heidelberg are investigating communication between memory areas during sleep.
Researchers have shown that sliding forces applied to cartilage surfaces prompt cells in that tissue to produce molecules that lubricate and protect joints, an important step toward their goal of eventually growing joint tissue for transplantation.