Biosingularity

The discovery of a major gear in the biological clock that tells the body when to sleep and metabolize food may lead to new drugs to treat sleep problems and metabolic disorders, including diabetes. Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, led by Ronald M. Evans, a professor in Salk’s Gene Expression Laboratory, showed [...]

Drugs made of protein have shown promise in treating cancer, but they are difficult to deliver because the body usually breaks down proteins before they reach their destination. To get around that obstacle, a team of MIT researchers has developed a new type of nanoparticle that can synthesize proteins on demand. Once these “protein-factory” particles [...]

Men who eat flavonoid-rich foods such as berries, tea, apples and red wine significantly reduce their risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, according to new research by Harvard University and the University of East Anglia (UEA). Published today in the journal Neurology ®, the findings add to the growing body of evidence that regular consumption of [...]

You might recall a particular photograph that caused quite a stir back in 1999. It was the photograph of Samuel Armas, then just a 21-week-old fetus, reaching his tiny hand out from inside the uterus to clasp onto the doctor’s finger during a surgical procedure to correct the birth defect spina bifida. The fetal surgery [...]

The immune system cancer known as lymphoma can often be cured, but some types remain stubbornly resistant to treatment. Now researchers have found a drug that appears to help vanquish these lymphomas by targeting their abnormal cell wiring. Tumors shrank in four of 10 advanced lymphoma patients treated with the drug, and one is still [...]

Awakening from anesthesia is often associated with an initial phase of delirious struggle before the full restoration of awareness and orientation to one’s surroundings. Scientists now know why this may occur: primitive consciousness emerges first. Using brain imaging techniques in healthy volunteers, a team of scientists led by Adjunct Professor Harry Scheinin, M.D. from the [...]

Targeted therapeutic nanoparticles that accumulate in tumors while bypassing healthy cells have shown promising results in an ongoing clinical trial, according to a new paper. The nanoparticles feature a homing molecule that allows them to specifically attack cancer cells, and are the first such targeted particles to enter human clinical studies. Originally developed by researchers [...]

Does your mind wander? During a class or meeting, do you find yourself staring out the window and thinking about what you’ll do tomorrow or next week? As a child, were you constantly reminded by teachers to stop daydreaming? Well, psychological research is beginning to reveal that daydreaming is a strong indicator of an active [...]

A new drug that tackles advanced prostate cancer in three different ways has passed its first hurdle towards being approved. Scientists reported promising early trial results using galeterone, which is designed to treat cancer that no longer responds to hormone therapy. However, researchers counselled caution as tests on the “triple whammy” drug have been carried out [...]

What is the relation between selective attention and consciousness? When you strain to listen to the distant baying of coyotes over the sound of a campsite conversation, you do so by attending to the sound and becoming conscious of their howls. When you attend to your sparring opponent out of the corner of your eye, [...]

The first atlas of the surface of the human brain based upon genetic information has been produced by a national team of scientists, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the VA San Diego Healthcare System. The work is published in the March 30 issue of the journal [...]

Standing up more often may reduce your chances of dying within three years, even if you are already physically active, a study of more than 200,000 people published in Archives of Internal Medicine today shows. The study found that adults who sat 11 or more hours per day had a 40% increased risk of dying [...]

Cheeseburgers pack on the pounds, but in mice a high-fat diet also packs on new nerve cells in the brain. More brain cells may seem like a good thing, but these newly sprouted cells appear to trigger weight gain in the animals, a new study finds. The results offer insight into how the brain controls [...]

A hidden and never before recognized layer of information in the genetic code has been uncovered by a team of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) thanks to a technique developed at UCSF called ribosome profiling, which enables the measurement of gene activity inside living cells — including the speed with which [...]

US doctors have carried out what they say is the most extensive face transplant ever performed. The operation at the University of Maryland gave Richard Norris a new face, including jaw, teeth and tongue. The 37-year-old has lived as a recluse for 15 years after being severely injured in a gun accident, and wore a [...]

A Penn- and MIT-led team explained how rapamycin, a drug that extends mouse lifespan, also causes insulin resistance. The researchers showed in an animal model that they could, in principle, separate the effects, which depend on inhibiting two protein complexes, mTORC1 and mTORC2, respectively. The study suggests that molecules that specifically inhibit mTORC1 may combat [...]

The first volume of a “book of cancer knowledge” has been published, which scientists say will speed up the search for new cancer drugs. The “encyclopaedia” details how hundreds of different cancer cells respond to anti-cancer agents. UK, US and European researchers say the data, published in Nature, is a step towards tailoring cancer medicine [...]

Ebola and its relatives, like Marburg virus, above, are considered among the most fearsome in nature. People infected with these long, wire-shaped filoviruses often bleed to death from every orifice, so the bugs make ideal villains for apocalyptic films like “Outbreak” and “28 Days Later.” The infections are considered incurable, but several advances have been [...]

Sleep has many functions—including facilitating learning.Now a study finds that when we acquire new information, and how soon we sleep after that may affect our retention of the info. That’s according to research in the journal Public Library of Science One.Scientists had more than 200 subjects memorize related words like “fire and smoke,” or unrelated [...]

“That’s not FAIR!” This is the line that rings through most houses with at least one kid. We all know when something’s not fair. That car that drove up the shoulder while you waited in traffic (rrrrr)? That’s a cheater, and that’s not fair. The person who cut in line at the grocery store instead [...]

Mouse ‘avatars’ could in future allow physicians to find the most effective cocktail of cancer drugs to combat a particular tumour before giving them to a patient, according to researchers at the annual meeting of the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) in Australia last week. “Using a personalized cancer avatar makes it possible to try out [...]

apses in oversight that prevented a US university from identifying the flawed research behind a series of clinical trials are symptomatic of a larger problem says a report by the US Institute of Medicine (IOM), released today. The case in question, which revolves around papers relating to cancer treatment published by researcher Anil Potti, indicates [...]

revious human studies have suggested that early life exposure to microbes (i.e., germs) is an important determinant of adulthood sensitivity to allergic and autoimmune diseases such as hay fever, asthma and inflammatory bowel disease. This concept of exposing people to germs at an early age (i.e., childhood) to build immunity is known as the hygiene [...]

On a small table in his office at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, Ray Stevens spreads out a sheet of paper covered with colourful branched lines, each sprouting and thinning before terminating in an esoteric code. “This is the dream,” he declares. The intricate diagram represents the largest family of receptor proteins [...]

Our fond or fearful memories — that first kiss or a bump in the night — leave memory traces that we may conjure up in the remembrance of things past, complete with time, place and all the sensations of the experience. Neuroscientists call these traces memory engrams. But are engrams conceptual, or are they a [...]

Researchers have identified a biological pathway previously unknown to have a role in male pattern hair loss. Published today in Science Translational Medicine1, the study finds that a lipid compound called prostaglandin D2 (PGD2) has a role in inhibiting hair growth. The study “is likely to lead to new hair growth products based on prostaglandin [...]

Scientists in Seattle are reporting a potential breakthrough in the treatment of pancreas cancer, a disease which stubbornly resists most therapies. Pancreas cancer tumors are resistent to chemotherapy partly because they form a biological barrier around themselves. Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center believe they’ve found a way to break that barrier down. [...]

There’s a moment in the history of medicine that’s so cinematic it’s a wonder no one has put it in a Hollywood film. The scene is a London laboratory. The year is 1928. Alexander Fleming, a Scottish microbiologist, is back from a vacation and is cleaning up his work space. He notices that a speck [...]

The case for using aspirin to prevent cancer continues to build, particularly if people are at increased risk of the disease. Three new studies led by researchers at Oxford University also raise the possibility that a daily low dose of the drug could be effective, not just as a preventative measure, but as an additional [...]

Researchers from Chalmers and the University of Gothenburg have shown that nanocellulose stimulates the formation of neural networks. This is the first step toward creating a three-dimensional model of the brain. Such a model could elevate brain research to totally new levels, with regard to Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, for example. Over a period [...]

In studies on mice which had been genetically modified to have the mutation, the mice consumed up to 80% more food than normal. After a meal, hormones such as insulin and leptin should tell the brain that the body is full and should stop eating. The researchers showed that in the mutated mice the message [...]

Michael Snyder knows his body better than anyone in history. For two-and-a-half years, he’s had regular blood samples drawn, and tracked the ebb and flow of 40,000 different molecules within his cells, from hormones to blood sugar, to the proteins of the immune system and mutated genes. Snyder also watched as his genetic vulnerability to [...]

The aging brain loses its ability to recognize when it is time to move on to a new task, explaining why the elderly have difficulty multi-tasking, Yale University researchers report. “The aged brain seems to get lost in transition,” said Mark Laubach, associate professor at the John B. Pierce Laboratory and the Yale School of [...]

Movies and television shows are full of scenes where a man tries unsuccessfully to interact with a pretty woman. In many cases, the potential suitor ends up acting foolishly despite his best attempts to impress. It seems like his brain isn’t working quite properly and according to new findings, it may not be. Researchers have [...]

An algorithm designed by US scientists to trawl through a plethora of drug interactions has yielded thousands of previously unknown side effects caused by taking drugs in combination. The work, published today in Science Translational Medicine1, provides a way to sort through the hundreds of thousands of ‘adverse events’ reported to the US Food and [...]

In the first months after her surgery, shopping for groceries was infuriating. Standing in the supermarket aisle, Vicki would look at an item on the shelf and know that she wanted to place it in her trolley — but she couldn’t. “I’d reach with my right for the thing I wanted, but the left would [...]

The big push in cancer treatment these days is to sample a person’s tumor, test it for mutations, and give the patient a drug tailored to a genetic weak spot in the tumor. A new study suggests one reason why this targeted drug strategy doesn’t always work. A solid tumor, it turns out, is not [...]

As the United States seeks to reinvigorate its job market and move past economic recession, MIT News examines manufacturing’s role in the country’s economic future through this series on work at the Institute around manufacturing. Traditional drug manufacturing is a time-consuming process. Active pharmaceutical ingredients are synthesized in a chemical manufacturing plant and then shipped [...]

A single injection of cocaine or methamphetamine in mice caused their brains to put the brakes on neurons that generate sensations of pleasure, and these cellular changes lasted for at least a week, according to research by scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Their findings, reported March 7 in Neuron, suggest this powerful [...]

A study by Columbia researchers suggests that cells in the patient’s intestine could be coaxed into making insulin, circumventing the need for a stem cell transplant. Until now, stem cell transplants have been seen by many researchers as the ideal way to replace cells lost in type I diabetes and to free patients from insulin [...]

A retinoid called all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA), which is a vitamin A-derivative, is already used successfully to treat a rare sub-type of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), however this drug has not been effective for the more common types of AMLs. Team leader Arthur Zelent, Ph.D., and colleagues at the ICR have been working to unlock [...]

Making berries a part of your daily diet may help keep your memory sharp, a new review shows. The review shows there’s strong evidence that eating berries boosts brain function and may prevent age-related memory loss. “In addition to their now well-known antioxidant effects, dietary supplementation with berry fruits has direct effects on the brain,” [...]

UK scientists have found that the drug donepezil, which is approved for use only in the mild to moderate stages of Alzheimer’s disease, could benefit patients in the later stages of the disease. The study is published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study, led by researchers at King’s College London, set out [...]

How do we recognize a face? To date, most research has answered “holistically”: We look at all the features — eyes, nose, mouth — simultaneously and, perceiving the relationships among them, gain an advantage over taking in each feature individually. Now a new study overturns this theory. The researchers — Jason M. Gold and Patrick [...]

Larry Smarr stops a visitor and says, “Before you go, let me show you my stool sample.” The UC San Diego physicist-futurist reaches into his kitchen refrigerator, past the milk, and pulls out a small white box. He marvels over its contents. “The bacteria in here contains more info than you’d find on a computer [...]

In Silicon Valley, the line between computing and biology has begun to blur in a way that could have enormous consequences for human longevity. Bill Banyai, an optical physicist at Complete Genomics, has helped make that happen. When he began developing a gene sequencing machine, he relied heavily on his background at two computer networking [...]

Last month, the FDA issued an unusual warning. It wasn’t about counterfeit prescription drugs, an unsafe medicine, or a recalled product. Rather, the warning was for something that grows naturally in the groves of Florida: the sour, juicy grapefruit. The FDA consumer update confirmed what users of drugs like statins have known for a long [...]