news 2012

Antidepressants are the most widely used treatment for people with moderate to severe depression. However, up to two thirds of people with depression don't respond fully to this type of treatment. New findings, published in The Lancet , have shown cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)*, provided in addition to usual care, can reduce symptoms of depression and help improve patients' quality of life.

Stem cells are to be used in a £45m effort to look at providing new treatments for a host of complex conditions affecting large numbers of people, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, autism and diabetes. However, it's not the stem cells themselves that would form the new treatments. Instead, the stem cells would provide a platform to transform the process of discovering new drugs.

The same medical imaging technology that doctors use to noninvasively image the heart and brain is now giving scientists a close-up view of the subsurface world. Berkeley Lab scientists are developing a way to use Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography, or SPECT, to map 3-D changes in sediment samples without disturbing them.

Pancreatic cancer has a dismal prognosis, especially if it is diagnosed late. But a new non-invasive way of detecting the disease early offers the potential for more treatment options, say Edmonton researchers. The scientific team, led by Department of Oncology researcher Michael Sawyer , found that by using metabolomics-the unique chemical fingerprints that cellular processes leave behind-to detect pancreatic cancer at an early stage may facilitate the discovery of novel pancreatic cancer biomarkers.

Scientists have identified the key molecular pathway leading to depression, revealing potential new targets for drug discovery, according to research led by King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry. The study, published today , reveals for the first time that the 'Hedgehog pathway' regulates how stress hormones, usually elevated during depression, reduce the number of brain cells.

A gene that helps the body convert that big plate of holiday cookies you just polished off into fat could provide a new target for potential treatments for fatty liver disease, diabetes and obesity. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are unlocking the molecular mechanisms of how our body converts dietary carbohydrates into fat, and as part of that research, they found that a gene with the catchy name BAF60c contributes to fatty liver, or steatosis.

Researchers from UCL have found that cycling is safer than driving for young males, with 17 to 20 year old drivers facing almost five times greater risk per hour than cyclists of the same age. The researchers looked at hospital admissions and deaths in England between 2007 and 2009 for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers.

Asthma is more common among children born after IVF and other treatments than among children who have been planned and conceived naturally, suggests a study led by Oxford University researchers. However, the researchers say that their findings should not worry parents of children born after assisted reproduction technology (ART).

Findings published in NEJM show that microarray finds significantly more clinically relevant information than current method Second study in NEJM shows significant advantages of microarray for stillbirths New York, NY-A large, multi-center clinical trial led by researchers from Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) shows that a new genetic test resulted in significantly more clinically relevant information than the current standard method of prenatal testing.

Taking the drug tamoxifen for ten years after breast cancer surgery, rather than the usual five, further reduces the chances of dying from breast cancer. The findings - for women with oestrogen receptor positive (ER-positive) breast cancer - come from the long-running ATLAS trial led by Oxford University's Clinical Trial Service Unit (CTSU).

A combination therapy using an experimental new drug shows significant promise for women with a common type of breast cancer in which estrogen causes their tumors to grow, researchers with the Revlon/UCLA Women's Cancer Research Program at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center report.

People who have low-level malaria infections that are not detected by standard tests may be a source of up to 20-50 per cent of onward transmissions, a new study has found. These carriers have a low number of parasites in their blood and are usually unaware that they have malaria, but mosquitoes taking a bite on these people can still become infected and then go on to transmit the parasite to other people.

In 2011, an outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes in cantaloupe led to almost 150 illnesses and 30 deaths. With a spate of recent outbreaks of such foodborne pathogens as Salmonella , Shiga toxin-producing E. coli and L. monocytogenes , the ability to predict where and how these deadly microbes enter the food supply chain could save lives and prevent disease.

Teens who date and are sexually active are known to be at elevated risk for depression, but why those associations exist is poorly understood. Now a new Cornell study has found that casual sexual "hookups" increased a teenager's odds for clinical-level depression nearly threefold, whereas dating and sexual activity within a committed relationship had no significant impact.

Humans may be endowed with the ability to perform complex forms of learning, attention and function but the evolutionary process that led to this has put us at risk of mental illness. Data from new research, published today , was analysed by Richard Emes, a bioinformatics expert from the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science at The University of Nottingham.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. An animal scientist in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences played a role in the first complete sequencing of the pig genome by an international team of researchers. The study, conducted by the International Swine Genome Sequencing Consortium, provides a genetic comparison of the domesticated pig and its wild cousins.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have shown that the cells that produce glucagon are stimulated by the hormone itself. A previous study by the same group demonstrated that this principle also applies to insulin. This means that a feedback system is at work in the body, whereby hormone secreting cells receive an immediate signal to produce more of the hormone.

Scientists have found that low-level exposure to organophosphates (OPs) produces lasting decrements in neurological and cognitive function. Memory and information processing speed are affected to a greater degree than other cognitive functions such as language. The systematic review of the literature was carried out by researchers at UCL and the Open University.

Based on a news release from the Wellcome Trust Researchers have identified four new genetic regions that influence birth weight, providing further evidence that genes as well as maternal nutrition are important for growth in the womb. Three of the regions are also linked to adult metabolism, helping to explain why smaller babies have higher rates of chronic diseases later in life.

Women suffering from sleep apnea have, on the whole, a higher degree of brain damage than men with the disorder, according to a first-of-its-kind study conducted by researchers at the UCLA School of Nursing . The findings are reported in the December issue of the peer-reviewed journal SLEEP. Obstructive sleep apnea is a serious disorder that occurs when a person's breathing is repeatedly interrupted during sleep, sometimes hundreds of times.