news 2014

New Penn Medicine research has found that elevated levels in the blood of the brain-enriched protein calpain-cleaved 'II-spectrin N-terminal fragment, known as SNTF, shortly after sports-related concussion can predict the severity of post-concussion symptoms in professional athletes. The complete findings were released today in the Journal of Neurotrauma.

The way that tetanus neurotoxin enters nerve cells has been discovered by UCL scientists, who showed that this process can be blocked, offering a potential therapeutic intervention for tetanus. This newly-discovered pathway could be exploited to deliver therapies to the nervous system, opening up a whole new way to treat neurological disorders such as motor neuron disease and peripheral neuropathies.

People affected by a common inherited form of autism could be helped by a drug that is being tested as a treatment for cancer, according to researchers from the University of Edinburgh and McGill University. Fragile X Syndrome is the most common genetic cause of autism spectrum disorders. It affects around 1 in 4,000 boys and 1 in 6,000 girls.

Dogs listen to our words, not just our voices, says Sussex study Dog owners often claim their pets understand everything they say. Now a new University of Sussex study shows that our canine friends do actually process human speech in a similar way to us. Mammal communication researchers in the School of Psychology tested more than 250 dogs to see how they responded to a set of spoken commands, and found that, like humans, dogs use different parts of the brain to process the verbal components of a familiar sentence and the emotion or intonation of the speaker.

The presence of an immune-suppressing protein in non-cancerous immune cells may predict how patients with different types of cancer respond to treatment, a multi-center phase I study using an investigational immune therapy drug has found. The study, led by a Yale Cancer Center investigator, is described in the Nov.

Researchers have discovered a mechanism linked to the brain damage often suffered by stroke victims-and are now searching for drugs to block it. Strokes happen when the blood supply to part of the brain is cut off but much of the harm to survivors’ memory and other cognitive function is often actually caused by “oxidative stress” in the hours and days after the blood supply resumes.

New biological methods used to trace the evolutionary history of kinship patterns shed new light on how societies developed as farming spread across the globe during the Neolithic, according to new research by a UCL-led international team. Kinship is the web of social relationships that underlie human society, with lines of descent determining how wealth, land and position are inherited across the generations.

The team already knew that some people with autism were deficient in a gene called neurexin-II. To investigate whether the gene was associated with autism symptoms, the Leeds team studied mice with the same defect. They found behavioural features that were similar to autism symptoms, including a lack of sociability or interest in other mice.

Our structure (research) Impact of our research Postgraduate research 25 Nov 2014 Scientists at the University of Manchester have discovered a potential weakness in cancer's ability to return or become resistant to treatment, by targeting the 'fuel' part of stem cells which allows tumours to grow. Cancer stem cells are particularly difficult to eradicate and are at the heart of why it is so hard to more effectively treat cancer patients, as the post-treatment survival of cancer stem cells drives tumour recurrence, the systemic spread of cancer and, ultimately, treatment failure.

Oxford University researchers have found a network of brain regions that appears to be more vulnerable to unhealthy ageing - such as Alzheimer's disease - and also seems susceptible to disorders that emerge in young people, such as schizophrenia. The team showed that, in healthy people, these parts of the brain are the last to develop and the first to show signs of neurodegeneration.

Queensland researchers have led an international effort to uncover the gene behind a young Brisbane boy's rare developmental condition, in a discovery his family hopes will pave the way for future treatments. Eleven-year-old Seth De Rooy is one of only seven people in the world diagnosed with Temple-Baraitser syndrome (TBS), which causes severe epilepsy, intellectual disability, low muscle tone and missing nails on the thumbs and big toes.

The structure of pores found in cell nuclei has been uncovered by a UCL-led team of scientists, revealing how they selectively block certain molecules from entering, protecting genetic material and normal cell functions. The discovery could lead to the development of new drugs against viruses that target the cell nucleus and new ways of delivering gene therapies, say the scientists behind the study.

A new test for measuring histamine release from certain white blood cells could help doctors monitor the effectiveness of immunotherapy for hay fever. Immunotherapy involves exposing patients to gradually increasing doses of allergen by injection or through tablets or drops placed under the tongue to 'desensitise' their immune systems.

Reed Hutchinson/UCLA Researchers led by UCLA's Mayank Mehta were surprised to find that neurons in rats' brains reacted entirely differently to virtual and real environments. UCLA neurophysicists have found that space-mapping neurons in the brain react differently to virtual reality than they do to real-world environments.

IMPACT Osteonecrosis of the jaw is a debilitating and painful condition in which oral lesions develop in individuals taking drugs such as bisphosphonate or denosumab, which are commonly used in treatments for osteoporosis and for cancers that have spread to the bones. Although formally identified in 2003, the fundamental causes for osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ) development and its treatment remain unclear.

Understanding the self-replication mechanisms is critical for improving stem cell therapies for blood-related diseases and cancers Peter Bracke Led by Dr. Hanna Mikkola, a member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research , UCLA scientists have discovered a protein that is integral to the self-replication of hematopoietic stem cells during human development.

A new national research centre based at ANU will investigate how language works and how it makes us who we are. Based at the University, the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language draws together the nation's top linguists, philosophers, psychologists and roboticists to puzzle out the complex mechanisms of human communication.

Press release issued: 24 November 2014 Why are viruses such as Ebola so dangerous to humans yet do not appear to harm the bats which transmit them? A team of scientists from the University of Bristol, UK and CSIRO's Australian Animal Health Laboratories (AAHL) have used cutting edge techniques to comprehensively compare the response of bat and human cells to a highly dangerous bat virus.

Scientists from the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have learned new details about how an important tumor-suppressing protein, called p53, binds to the human genome. As with many things in life, they found that context makes a big difference. The researchers mapped the places where p53 binds to the genome in a human cancer cell line.

Some studies on the relationship between microbes and human health may be producing incorrect results due to lab contamination, according to a study. Bacteria that live inside our bodies - known as the microbiome - are a hot topic in biomedical science, with many studies claiming they play central roles in health and disease.