Medical

Scientists at MIT and the University of São Paulo in Brazil have identified the structure of an enzyme that could be a good target for drugs combating three diseases common in the developing world. The enzyme, fumarate hydratase (FH) is essential for metabolic processes of parasites that are responsible for the spread of three diseases: Leishmaniases, Chagas disease, and sleeping sickness.

Over 13 million pain-blocking epidurals are performed every year in the United States and, although generally regarded as safe, there are complications in up to 10% of cases where the needles are inserted too far or placed in the wrong tissue. Researchers from MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital hope to improve this statistic with a new sensor that can be embedded into an epidural needle, helping anaesthetists guide the needle to the correct l...

Using a unique single-molecule force measurement tool, a research team has developed a clearer understanding of how platelets sense the mechanical forces they encounter during bleeding to initiate the cascading process that leads to blood clotting. Beyond providing a better understanding of this vital bodily process, research into a mechanoreceptor molecule that triggers clotting could provide a potential new target for therapeutic intervent...

Scientists at Karolinska Institutet in collaboration with Estonian Competence Centre on Health Technologies have developed a gene expression analysis method to widen the usage of blood in biomarker discovery and analysis. Their paper is published in the journal Scientific Reports. Blood carries cells that provide biomarkers for a number of applications.

Researchers have used CRISPR to convert cells isolated from mouse connective tissue directly into neuronal cells. In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka, a professor at the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences at Kyoto University at the time, discovered how to revert adult connective tissue cells, called fibroblasts, back into immature stem cells that could differentiate into any cell type.

A chemistry graduate student at UChicago, Di Liu devised a way to make tiny knotted and interlocked chemical structures that have been impossible for chemists to fabricate until now, and he invented a way that those knots might be used to quickly screen hundreds of chemicals for fighting cancer. Many chemicals have knots or links as part of their structure. But synthesising new substances that tie themselves in knots at the molecular scale i...

Cold plasma, which is made of electrons that change polarity at micro-second or nanosecond speeds, could help bones heal faster, according to a study published in the Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine. Most people interact with plasma every day. It's in our TVs, fluorescent lights, lightning, the aurora borealis, and the sun. However, these are all examples of hot or "thermal" plasmas.

Michigan Technological University scientists have developed a process that could lead to stickier—and better—gene therapy drugs. The drugs, called antisense DNA, are made from short, single strands of synthetic DNA. They work by blocking cells from making harmful proteins, which can cause maladies ranging from cancer to Ebola to HIV-AIDS. Only a couple of these synthetic DNA drugs are on the market, but a number are in clinical t...

  Genome-wide association studies, which try to find correlations between particular genetic variations and disease diagnoses, are a staple of modern medical research. But because they depend on databases that contain people’s medical histories, they carry privacy risks.

Normally, individual molecules of genetic material repel each other. However, when space is limited DNA molecules must be packed together more tightly. This case arises in sperm, cell nuclei and the protein shells of viruses. An international team of physicists has now succeeded in artificially recreating this so-called DNA condensation on a biochip. Recreating important biological processes in cells to better understand them currently is a ...