familymednews.com
If you have ever smoked, or know someone who has—they might tell you that smoking a cigarette probably felt disgusting at first. Taryn Grieder has a personal interest in understanding why people continue to smoke despite the initial revulsion and countless health risks. “In my family we have six people and five of us—everyone but me—smoke, or at least they […]
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With CAR T cell therapy, a patient’s own immune cells are genetically modified and inserted back into the body to find and kill cancer. This form of immunotherapy has already revolutionized some cancer treatments, but once the CAR T cells are inside a patient, where do they go? How do doctors know that they have successfully reached their target and […]
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For decades, neuroscientists have relied on a technique for reading out electrical “spikes” of brain activity in live, behaving subjects that tells them very little about the types of cells they are monitoring. In a new study, researchers at the University of Tuebingen and MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory demonstrate a way to increase their insight by distinguishing […]
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Tree-like branching structures are everywhere in the human body, from the bronchial system in the lungs to the spidering capillaries that supply blood to the extremities. Researchers have long worked to understand the cellular signaling needed to build these intricate structures, but new research suggests that simple physics may play an underappreciated role. The research, published in the Proceedings of […]
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Platelets—tiny cells critical for blood clotting—could be the key to protecting against brain damage occurring during pregnancy or around the time of birth. Information gained from the pre-clinical study led by Dr. Alison Farley and Dr. Samir Taoudi from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute could enable doctors to intervene at the right time to prevent brain bleeds—a significant risk […]
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Bone marrow contains biological factories, which pump out billions of new blood cells daily. The non-blood cells that maintain this production also have the potential to produce bone, fat and cartilage. This output all starts from stem cells that have the ability to differentiate into various types of cells. Knowledge of the genes that control this differentiation and the paths […]
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A new spectroscopic technique reveals that glucose use in live cells provides valuable information about the functional status of cells, tissues, and organs. Shifts in a cell’s use of glucose can signal changes in health and progress of disease. How a cell uses glucose has long been a window on overall health. However, existing glucose-imaging tools have only been able […]
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Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) is DNA found in trace amounts in blood, which has escaped degradation by enzymes. Scientists from Tokyo University of Science, led by Prof Ryushin Mizuta, have now discovered exactly how cfDNA is generated. They also talk about the applications of DNase1L3—the enzyme mainly responsible for generating cfDNA—as a novel molecule to prevent the spread of tumors. Prof […]
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Therapies to improve recovery after a heart attack could be developed following fresh insights into how key cells are formed. Scientists have developed a system that allows them to study cells that line the walls of blood vessels, called endothelial cells. Researchers say the findings shed light on how the cells can be best grown in the lab for use […]
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Embedded at the ends of chromosomes are structures called telomeres, which in normal cells become shorter as cells divide. Progressive shortening triggers cell proliferation arrest or death. Cancer cells adopt different strategies to overcome this control mechanism that keeps track of the number of times that a cell has divided. One of these strategies is the alternative lengthening of telomeres […]
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