A new study out of the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in humans, chimpanzees, rhesus macaques and baboons has found key differences in early gene expression in response to pathogen exposure, highlighting the importance of choosing the right animal model for the right questions. The study was published on March 26 […]
World-first treatment for oral cancer
Thought LeadersProfessor Mark McGurkDirector of the Head and Neck Academic CentreUniversity College London Hospital Professor Mark McGurk speaks to News-Medical about his groundbreaking research that has led to the discovery of a world-first treatment for oral cancer. What inspired your research into head and neck cancer? I have been working on head and neck cancer […]
Persistent loneliness during midlife can increase risk of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease
Being persistently lonely during midlife (ages 45-64) appears to make people more likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer's Disease (AD) later in life. However, people who recover from loneliness, appear to be less likely to suffer from dementia, compared to people who have never felt lonely. Loneliness is a subjective feeling resulting from a perceived […]
Chemical cocktail shows promise for producing muscle stem cells
A UCLA-led research team has identified a chemical cocktail that enables the production of large numbers of muscle stem cells, which can self-renew and give rise to all types of skeletal muscle cells. The advance could lead to the development of stem cell-based therapies for muscle loss or damage due to injury, age or disease. […]
New evidence supports the use of antisense oligonucleotides as feasible therapeutic strategy for MDS
Many cognitive neurodevelopmental disorders are a result of too many or too few copies of certain genes or chromosomes. To date, no treatment options exist for this class of disorders. MECP2 duplication syndrome (MDS) is one such disorder that primarily affects boys and results from a duplication spanning the methyl-CpG binding protein 2 (MECP2) locus […]
UTHSC researchers awarded $1.9 million to study white matter mechanisms underlying dementia
The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has awarded two UTHSC researchers over $1.9 million to study the pathogenesis of white matter damage, a main contributing factor to dementia. Francesca-Fang Liao, PhD, and Fu-Ming Zhou, PhD, both professors in the Department of Pharmacology, Addiction Science, and Toxicology, are co-investigators on the project titled "Blood-brain-barrier […]
Sorting out how politics, policies figure in flap over New York nursing home Covid death rates
The plaudits have faded for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Once hailed as a paragon of pandemic governing, he's since come under scorching criticism for undercounting the state's Covid deaths among nursing home residents by as much as half. The tallying flap drew attention to another misstep: a policy last March that directed nursing homes […]
Study: Public attitude toward COVID-19 and its treatments is more “infectious” than disease itself
Public attitude toward COVID-19 and its treatments is more "infectious" than the disease itself, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyze tweets about the virus. Researchers studied the influence of Twitter on COVID-19 health beliefs as well as the competing influence of scientific evidence versus the speeches of politicians. […]
Electronic doctors’ notes could help hospitals plan for surges in COVID-19 cases
A new study, published today in Nature Digital Medicine, found that 'natural language processing' (NLP) of information routinely recorded by doctors – as part of patients' electronic health records – reveal vital trends that could help clinical teams forecast and plan for surges in patients. The researchers from King's College London, King's College Hospital NHS […]
Laughter isn’t always the best medicine for work stress
Humor helps us deal with the stress of juggling work and family commitments, but only when we seek it out, according to a new study led by The Australian National University (ANU). It turns out colleagues sending us cat videos to make us laugh before an important meeting might actually be making our blood pressure […]