Giving a daily antiretroviral pill to people to prevent HIV could profoundly slow the spread of the infection in sub-Saharan Africa, where it is a full-blown epidemic, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers report.
The Ministry of Health (MoH) of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with the support of international partners, is continuing field investigations to determine the extent of the outbreak of Ebola haemorrhagic fever in the Province of Kasai Occidental.
Despite the huge publicity generated by a 2002 study on the potential dangers of hormone therapy for postmenopausal women, new research from the Stanford University School of Medicine found that only 29 percent of women surveyed knew about the study two years later.
Lupus occurs when the immune system misfires and attacks the body’s organs and tissues. Nobody knows exactly why this happens, but a new study points to one possible cause.
Rochester has been chosen as one of four national sites to monitor the effectiveness of the new cervical cancer vaccine. The project, which is funded by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), will be jointly conducted by the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and the New York State Department of Health.
After a decade of research, Howard Hughes Medical Institute scientists have succeeded in reprogramming adult stem cells from the testes of male mice into functional blood vessels and contractile cardiac tissue. The research offers a promising new source of stem cells for use in organ regeneration studies.
Scientists have discovered how the gene mutation responsible for fragile X syndrome — the most common inherited form of mental retardation — alters the way brain cells communicate. In neurons cultured from laboratory rats, the scientists also were able to reverse the effects of the mutation using a drug targeted to the specific site in an upstream pathway of the defect. The finding could lead to the development of human therapies for this previously untreatable condition.
RNA interference, a natural mechanism that inhibits the gene expression of individual genes in eukaryotic cells, is a major topic in modern biology. However, their potential was usable to only a limited extent in mammals because the mechanism for the uptake of small RNAs was unknown up to now. ETH Zurich biologists have now clarified this, which also opens the door for therapies based on this mechanism.
The 15 minutes it took to remove Buffalo Bills player Kevin Everett off the field after he suffered a spinal cord injury may seem like a long time for someone needing acute medical care, but in fact, those minutes underscore how critical it is to carefully move a player with a suspected spinal cord injury off the field. It also highlights the challenges faced when needing to minimize any further movement to an injured spinal cord.
For orthopaedic implants to be successful, bone must meld to the metal that these artificial hips, knees and shoulders are made of. A team of Brown University engineers, led by Thomas Webster, has discovered a new material that could significantly increase this success rate.