Health News

Growth Factor Identified That Is Essential To Medulloblastoma

Date: Mar-03-2013
A multi-institutional team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers has identified a molecular pathway that appears to be essential for the growth and spread of medulloblastoma, the most common malignant brain tumor in children. In their report in the journal Cell, they show that blocking this pathway - which involves interactions between tumor cells and the surrounding tissues - leads to regression of all four molecular subtypes of medulloblastoma in several mouse models...

Tactile And Motor Information Transmitted Between Rats Using Brain-To-Brain Interface

Date: Mar-03-2013
Researchers have electronically linked the brains of pairs of rats for the first time, enabling them to communicate directly to solve simple behavioral puzzles. A further test of this work successfully linked the brains of two animals thousands of miles apart - one in Durham, N.C., and one in Natal, Brazil. The results of these projects suggest the future potential for linking multiple brains to form what the research team is calling an "organic computer," which could allow sharing of motor and sensory information among groups of animals...

Protein Link To STI Susceptibility Discovered

Date: Mar-03-2013
Monash Institute of Medical Research scientists have found a protein in the female reproductive tract that protects against sexually transmitted diseases (STIs) such as chlamydia and herpes simplex virus (HSV). It is estimated that 450 million people worldwide are newly infected with STIs each year. Chlamydia has the highest infection rate of all the STIs reported in Australia...

Dyslexic Children Benefit From Action Video Games

Date: Mar-03-2013
Much to the chagrin of parents who think their kids should spend less time playing video games and more time studying, time spent playing action video games can actually make dyslexic children read better. In fact, 12 hours of video game play did more for reading skills than is normally achieved with a year of spontaneous reading development or demanding traditional reading treatments. The evidence, appearing in the Cell Press journal Current Biology, follows from earlier work by the same team linking dyslexia to early problems with visual attention rather than language skills...

Mutation Location Is The Key To Prognosis

Date: Mar-03-2013
The three most important factors in real estate are location, location, location, and the same might be said for mutations in the gene MECP2, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (NRI) at Texas Children's Hospital in a report in the journal Cell. "Where a mutation occurs can affect the severity of the symptoms of the disease," said Dr. Huda Zoghbi, professor of molecular and human genetics at BCM and director of the NRI...

Mobile Game App Could Help Drive Cancer Research

Date: Mar-03-2013
A collaboration project between Cancer Research UK and the Citizen Science Alliance is focusing on creating a new mobile game app that could accelerate cures for cancer. The new and exciting idea will let people use their smartphones to play a fun game that will also provide important scientific data for researchers. A total of forty computer programmers, gamers, and specialists will participate in an event called 'GameJam' and use Cancer Research UK's raw gene data to develop a game format, which has a working title 'GeneRun'...

Dealing With Medication Errors - EMA Calls For Coordinated EU Approach

Date: Mar-03-2013
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) conducted a workshop aimed at a coordinated EU approach to tackling medication errors, which included proposals on how such errors are reported and prevented. EMA says that national patient safety authorities, EMA, the European Commission and national competent authorities need to liaise closely to tackle the issue of medication errors which cause considerable harm in Europe. EMA wrote today, at the end of the workshop which started on 28th February, that "This collaboration should engage patients and healthcare professionals...

Time To Get Serious About Treatment Of Drug Dependence

Date: Mar-03-2013
Failure to treat drug dependence effectively is leading to unnecessary deaths and soaring social costs, according to drug rehabilitation specialists. Effective treatment combines medication with psychosocial support, however around half of drug dependent patients in Europe are not offered any psychosocial intervention according to new data from the pan-EU EQUATOR survey (The European Quality Audit of Opioid Treatment). Speaking at a London Summit on opioid dependence, Consultant Psychiatrist Dr Farrukh Alam said that every £1 ($1...

Breast Cancer Diagnosis Linked To PTSD Risk

Date: Mar-03-2013
Twenty-three percent of women who are newly diagnosed with breast cancer have PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) symptoms, researchers from the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC) at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The PTSD cancer diagnosis association is especially noticeable among African-American and Asian women, the authors added...

School-Based Deworming Programmes Important But Other Strategies Essential To Control STH

Date: Mar-03-2013
Although they have an important impact on children's health and education, school-based deworming programmes have a limited impact on the level of infection in the wider community, according to a mathematical modeling study conducted by researchers at Imperial College London. Parasitic worms called soil-transmitted helminths (STH) infect more than a billion people in developing countries; these worms rob the infected person of nutrition and negatively affect physical growth and cognitive development, especially in children...