http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Malaria parasites are able to disguise themselves to avoid the host's immune system, according to research funded by the Wellcome Trust and published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://www.physorg.com/news178819230.html Medicine & Health Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:30:01 EST news178819230 When people have malaria, they are infected with Plasmodium parasites, which enter the body from the saliva of a mosquito, infect cells in the liver, and then spread to red blood cells. Inside the blood cells, the parasites replicate and also begin to expose adhesive proteins on the cell surface that change the physical nature of the cells in the bloodstream. http://www.physorg.com/news178174676.html Biology Mon, 23 Nov 2009 05:10:05 EST news178174676 A team of researchers at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute Life Sciences and Bioengineering Center at Gateway Park has developed a new model system to study fungal infections. The system can be a powerful tool for screening potential drug targets for conditions like thrush, athlete's foot and vaginal yeast infections, which affect millions of people each year but are difficult to treat with existing medications. Using the new model, the researchers also identified a gene that may be a promising target for a new anti-fungal drug. http://www.physorg.com/news177851974.html Biology Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:21:01 EST news177851974 Just as fly paper captures insects, an innovative new device with nano-sized features developed by researchers at UCLA is able to grab cancer cells in the blood that have broken off from a tumor. http://www.physorg.com/news177771822.html Chemistry Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:04:21 EST news177771822 Of the many characteristic traits a drug can have, one of the most desirable is the ability for a drug to be swallowed and absorbed into the bloodstream through the gut. Some drugs, like over-the-counter aspirin, lend themselves to this mode of delivery and are trivial to take. They can be pressed into a pill and swallowed. Other drugs cannot be swallowed and must be administered instead through more complicated routes. Insulin, for instance, must be injected. http://www.physorg.com/news176994804.html Biology Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:00:02 EST news176994804 In diseases such as multiple sclerosis, cells of the immune system infiltrate the brain tissue, where they cause immense damage. For many years, it was an enigma as to how these cells can escape from the bloodstream. This is no trivial feat, given that specialized blood vessels act as a barrier between the nervous system and the bloodstream. http://www.physorg.com/news176652011.html Medicine & Health Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:01:57 EST news176652011 A strain of MRSA that causes bloodstream infections is five times more lethal than other strains and has shown to have some resistance to the potent antibiotic drug vancomycin used to treat MRSA, according to a Henry Ford Hospital study. http://www.physorg.com/news176266021.html Medicine & Health Sun, 01 Nov 2009 03:00:02 EST news176266021 (AP) -- A new treatment for swine flu may already be on pharmacy shelves - cholesterol-lowering statin drugs like Lipitor and Zocor. http://www.physorg.com/news176057307.html Medicine & Health Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:49:10 EST news176057307 (PhysOrg.com) -- A discovery by scientists at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation could help save lives threatened by traumatic injuries like those sustained in car crashes or on the battlefield. The work also holds potential for treating severe infectious diseases and diabetes. http://www.physorg.com/news175702495.html Medicine & Health Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:16:08 EST news175702495 Researchers have developed an optimized mouthpiece design to aid efficient drug delivery to the lungs by reducing the amount of medication wasted as it passes through the mouthpiece of an aerosol inhaler. With current inhaler designs, only approximately 10 to 20 percent of asthma medications are delivered to the lungs. And, because the lungs provide a direct and effective route of entry for medications into the bloodstream, an optimized mouthpiece design will reduce medication waste and may provide reproducible delivery of future inhaled medications. http://www.physorg.com/news175363387.html Medicine & Health Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:40:03 EST news175363387 An outbreak of bloodstream infections appears to have been caused by the contamination of pre-filled heparin and saline syringes made by a single company, according to a report in the October 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. The subsequent investigation revealed that the company was not in compliance with safety regulations and identified challenges and areas for improvement in medication monitoring systems. http://www.physorg.com/news174585368.html Medicine & Health Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:20:02 EST news174585368 The antidote for acute liver failure caused by acetaminophen poisoning also can treat acute liver failure due to most other causes if given before severe injury occurs, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers and their colleagues at 21 other institutions have found. http://www.physorg.com/news174197254.html Medicine & Health Thu, 08 Oct 2009 05:07:56 EST news174197254 (PhysOrg.com) -- UA biochemistry researchers apply Nobel Prize technology to develop better diagnostics for heart attacks. Their work also could help predict individual risks of heart disease. http://www.physorg.com/news173109224.html Medicine & Health Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:20:02 EST news173109224 (PhysOrg.com) -- An animal study at Purdue University has shown that adding ascorbic acid and sugar to green tea can help the body absorb helpful compounds and also demonstrates the effectiveness of a model that could reduce the number of animals needed for these types of studies. http://www.physorg.com/news171728383.html Chemistry Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:30:01 EST news171728383 Giving critically ill hospital patients a daily bath with a mild, soapy solution of the same antibacterial agent used by surgeons to "scrub in" before an operation can dramatically cut down, by as much as 73 percent, the number of patients who develop potentially deadly bloodstream infections, according to a new study by patient safety experts at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and five other institutions. http://www.physorg.com/news171275732.html Medicine & Health Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:40:01 EST news171275732 Small interfering RNA (siRNA), a type of genetic material, can block potentially harmful activity in cells, such as tumor cell growth. But delivering siRNA successfully to specific cells without adversely affecting other cells has been challenging. http://www.physorg.com/news170600432.html Biology Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:10:01 EST news170600432 Brain cancer is among the deadliest of cancers. It's also one of the hardest to treat. Imaging results are often imprecise because brain cancers are extremely invasive. Surgeons must saw through the skull and safely remove as much of the tumor as they can. Then doctors use radiation or chemotherapy to destroy cancerous cells in the surrounding tissue. http://www.physorg.com/news168537401.html Nanotechnology Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:20:01 EST news168537401 A new diagnostic tool developed by Van Andel Research Institute (VARI) scientists has shown promising results when used with patients of pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest forms of cancer due to the difficulty of diagnosing it in its early stages. The method, which studies carbohydrate structures in the bloodstream, could lead to the development of blood tests that can detect cancer more effectively. http://www.physorg.com/news168526022.html Medicine & Health Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:00:02 EST news168526022 In a daring experiment in Europe, scientists used mosquitoes as flying needles to deliver a "vaccine" of live malaria parasites through their bites. The results were astounding: Everyone in the vaccine group acquired immunity to malaria; everyone in a non-vaccinated comparison group did not, and developed malaria when exposed to the parasites later. http://www.physorg.com/news168110116.html Medicine & Health Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:30:01 EST news168110116 Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the University of Heidelberg, Germany, have come a step closer to understanding how cholesterol levels are regulated. In a study published today in the journal Cell Metabolism, the researchers identified 20 genes that are involved in this process. Besides giving scientists a better idea of where to look to uncover the mechanisms that ensure cholesterol balance is maintained, the discovery could lead to new treatments for cholesterol-related diseases. http://www.physorg.com/news166191890.html Medicine & Health Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:25:21 EST news166191890 In an article in Science, Noam Zelcer from the LACDR (The Netherlands) describes a previously unknown mechanism for regulating the amount of LDL cholesterol. This offers opportunities for supplementing and improving the effect of so-called statins: medicines that remove 'bad' cholesterol from the bloodstream.  http://www.physorg.com/news165739143.html Medicine & Health Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:39:41 EST news165739143 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the University of Michigan have devised a microscale tool to help them understand the mechanical behavior of biofilms, slimy colonies of bacteria involved in most human infectious diseases. http://www.physorg.com/news165595905.html Chemistry Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:30:02 EST news165595905 (PhysOrg.com) -- It is now possible to engineer tiny containers the size of a virus to deliver drugs and other materials with almost 100 percent efficiency to targeted cells in the bloodstream. http://www.physorg.com/news165158410.html Nanotechnology Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:20:47 EST news165158410 Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, and collaborators at Harvard Medical School have linked a specialized protein in human muscles to the process that clears glucose out of the bloodstream, shedding light on what goes wrong in type 2 diabetes on a cellular level. http://www.physorg.com/news162739002.html Chemistry Thu, 28 May 2009 14:17:20 EST news162739002 Scientists are reporting discovery of a potential new alternative to aspirin, ReoPro, and other anti-platelet agents used widely to prevent blood clots in coronary artery disease, heart attack and stroke. Their study, scheduled for the June 23 issue of ACS Nano, a monthly journal, involves particles of silver -- 1/50,000th the diameter of a human hair -- that are injected into the bloodstream. http://www.physorg.com/news162666750.html Nanotechnology Wed, 27 May 2009 18:12:56 EST news162666750 Dear EarthTalk: What is "nanotechnology"? I've heard that nanoparticles are already in consumer products, yet we haven't really studied their potential health impacts. (Dan Zeff, San Francisco) http://www.physorg.com/news162480951.html Nanotechnology Mon, 25 May 2009 14:38:25 EST news162480951 Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have combined their revolutionary new drug-delivery system with a powerful antimicrobial agent to treat potentially deadly drug-resistant staph infections in mice. The study is published this month in the online version of the Journal of Investigative Dermatology. http://www.physorg.com/news160330557.html Medicine & Health Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:16:19 EST news160330557 Researchers at the University of Leeds have developed chemicals which kill the most deadly malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium falciparum - including those resistant to existing drugs. http://www.physorg.com/news159623309.html Chemistry Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:48:55 EST news159623309 Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found that a protein responsible for regulating "bad" cholesterol in the blood works almost exclusively outside cells, providing clues for the development of therapies to block the protein's disruptive actions. http://www.physorg.com/news159170000.html Chemistry Fri, 17 Apr 2009 06:53:48 EST news159170000 (PhysOrg.com) -- A relatively low dietary intake of vitamins A and C boosts the risk of asthma, suggests a systematic analysis of the available evidence published ahead of print in the journal Thorax. http://www.physorg.com/news159116965.html Medicine & Health Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:14:23 EST news159116965