A research team led by scientists from the Consortium for Fibrosis Research & Translation (CFReT) at the University of Colorado School of Medicine has identified a potential target for treating heart failure related to fibrosis. Fibrosis is a wound-healing response after tissue injury or stress. Cardiac fibrosis can cause abnormal…
New type of visual filter discovered in an unlikely place
A University of Minnesota-led research team recently discovered a new way animals can modify their vision. Crystal-like structures in the photoreceptors of larval mantis shrimp simultaneously reflect and transmit light onto light sensitive cells. This newly described structure resembles how a human-made optical device, known as Fiber Bragg Grating, works….
Single enzyme helps drive inflammation in mice, provides target for new sepsis drugs
Sepsis occurs when the body goes overboard in its attempt to fight off an infection. Immune cells rush in, overreact and wreak havoc on tissues and organs, often resulting in organ failure and death. Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine recently found that removing the enzyme…
From Japanese basket weaving art to nanotechnology with ion beams: Ultradense arrays of magnetic quanta in high-temperature superconductors
The properties of high-temperature superconductors can be tailored by the introduction of artificial defects. An international research team around physicist Wolfgang Lang at the University of Vienna has succeeded in producing the world’s densest complex nano arrays for anchoring flux quanta, the fluxons. This was achieved by irradiating the superconductor…
Keeping livestock in the yard just might help your baby’s immune system: Amish babies’ gut microbes lead to more robust immune development in newborn pigs
Getting up close — and a little dirty — with farm animals just might help us fend off illness, say researchers who’ve further demonstrated the benefits of early exposure to a wide variety of environmental bacteria. Scientists from The Ohio State University found that bacteria and other microbes from rural…
New tool can pinpoint origins of the gut’s bacteria
A UCLA-led research team has developed a faster and more accurate way to determine where the many bacteria that live in, and on, humans come from. Broadly, the tool can deduce the origins of any microbiome, a localized and diverse community of microscopic organisms. The new computational tool, called “FEAST,”…
DNA tests for patients move closer with genome analysis advance
Diseases caused by genetic changes could be detected more readily thanks to an advance in DNA analysis software. The development will make it easier to integrate genetic testing into health care systems such as the UK’s National Health Service, which cares for around three million people affected by genetic diseases…
New tool for understanding cells in health and disease: A first-of-its-kind data analysis platform is helping make sense of the overwhelming amounts of data generated by single-cell research
A first-of-its-kind data analysis platform is enabling researchers to select the best tool for interpreting the overwhelming amounts of data generated by single-cell research. Accurately making sense of this information will help to explain the vital and varied roles cells play in health and disease. The platform, CellBench, was published…
Clinical trial improves treatment of genetic rickets
A new study shows a drug developed in conjunction with investigators at Indiana University School of Medicine to alleviate symptoms of a rare musculoskeletal condition is significantly more effective than conventional therapies. The findings are published in Lancet. X-linked hypophosphatemia, or XLH, is a phosphate-wasting disease that causes rickets and…
National effort urged to overhaul ‘broken’ health data system: Experts say data privacy laws don’t do enough to protect people
Our system for protecting health data in the United States is fundamentally broken and we need a national effort to rethink how we safeguard this information, say three experts in data privacy. In a perspective article in the April 18, 2019, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, the…
How the microbiota controls neutrophil activity
A host protein called Serum Amyloid A (Saa) is a major factor mediating the effects of the microbiota on the function of immune cells called neutrophils, according to a study published March 7 in the open-access journal PLOS Pathogens by John Rawls of Duke University School of Medicine, and colleagues….