A study published by investigators at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard University suggests that the blood-brain barrier in humans weakens with age and that the build-up of amyloid-beta plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease is a response to the threat of pathogens coming through the barrier.
The medaka fish, sometimes known as the Japanese rice fish, has a long history as a pet. In recent years it has also been a model organism for biological research – most recently in a study of the regeneration of damaged retinal cells.
Australian researchers have identified two genes that control a universal molecular programme responsible for placing immune cells at a point where they can quickly fight off pathogens before they establish themselves in the body. This role is said to be particularly important for protecting organs against disease.
Four years on from a study that classified breast cancer into 10 distinct subtypes, researchers at the University of Cambridge have dug deeper into the genetic evidence to discover that 40 mutated genes cause the disease to progress.
Scientists from the University of Luxembourg have developed a new tool that can accurately replicate the human microbiome thereby enabling a more detailed analysis of the interaction between this ecosystem and human disease.
AstraZeneca Plc has reached out to Craig Venter, who led the first commercial project to sequence the human genome, to collaborate on a database of genome sequences that could be used for drug research and development.
Researchers at the University College London Cancer Institute have found a way of using T-cells to attack cancer without involving the entire immune system.This selective approach has the potential of reducing side-effects but so far experiments have only been carried out in mice.
German researchers have identified an epigenetic approach for treating the second most common form of bone cancer affecting children and adolescents and two potential biomarkers for detecting the disease.
Researchers at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) have taken stem cells from the fatty tissue of a 50-year old human and turned them into functional beta cells in a procedure that could potentially be used to treat diabetes.
Japanese scientists have reported growing three-dimensional skin tissue in the laboratory and successfully transplanting it into mice where it connected with nerve and muscle tissue allowing the skin to function normally.