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. (PhysOrg.com) -- A new type of immune cell that can be out of control in certain chronic inflammatory diseases, worsening the symptoms of conditions like psoriasis and asthma, is described for the first time this week in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. http://www.physorg.com/news177676663.html Medicine & Health Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:50:01 EST news177676663 Lyme disease is caused by the microbe Borrelia burgdorferi, which is transmitted to humans from feeding ticks. http://www.physorg.com/news177620366.html Biology Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:30:01 EST news177620366 The aorta, the body's largest artery, stretches from the chest to below the kidneys, expanding and contracting with the pressure of blood driven directly into it by the heart. Although its walls are extraordinarily strong, like other blood vessels the aorta can sometimes develop bulges, called aneurysms. Like other aneurysms, those in the aorta sometimes give way, and the result is what doctors refer to as an "aortic dissection" - a clinical way of saying that the largest artery in your body has just started leaking, and you may well be on your way to becoming one of the nearly 16,000 Americans killed by the phenomenon annually. http://www.physorg.com/news177619107.html Medicine & Health Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:10:01 EST news177619107 Targeting the normal cells that surround cancer cells within and around a tumor is a strategy that could greatly increase the effectiveness of traditional anti-cancer treatments, say researchers at The Wistar Institute. http://www.physorg.com/news177620266.html Medicine & Health Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:00:03 EST news177620266 An international team of scientists, led by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, is taking the first step in developing a treatment for a rare genetic disorder called fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP), in which the body's skeletal muscles and soft connective tissue turns to bone, immobilizing patients over a lifetime with a second skeleton. http://www.physorg.com/news177258526.html Medicine & Health Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:50:03 EST news177258526 If taking nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen or naproxen is to protect you from developing Alzheimer disease then you will have to start taking them at a very early age according to new research in a mouse model of the disease that is to be published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. http://www.physorg.com/news177016208.html Medicine & Health Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:10:58 EST news177016208 (PhysOrg.com) -- While studying how the heart is formed, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine serendipitously found a novel cellular source of atrial fibrillation (AF), the most common type of abnormal heart beat. http://www.physorg.com/news176408803.html Medicine & Health Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:50:04 EST news176408803 Infection with West Nile virus (WNV) causes no symptoms in most people. However, it can cause fever, meningitis, and/or encephalitis. What determines the outcome of infection with WNV in different people has not been determined. http://www.physorg.com/news174586956.html Medicine & Health Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:10:02 EST news174586956 Iron is a micronutrient essential to the survival of both humans and disease-causing microbes. Changes in iron levels therefore affect the severity of infectious diseases. For example, individuals with mutations in their HFE gene have exceedingly high levels of iron in their liver and are more susceptible to infection with a number of microbes. http://www.physorg.com/news173987421.html Medicine & Health Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:50:01 EST news173987421 Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is a childhood cancer thought to originate from skeletal muscle. In patients whose disease has spread (metastasized) from the initial tumor site the chance of long-term survival is poor. Hopes for a therapy for such patients are not high, as little is known about the factors that control tumor progression and metastasis. http://www.physorg.com/news173987382.html Medicine & Health Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:50:02 EST news173987382 After spinal cord injury, certain immune cells collect in the spinal fluid and release high levels of antibodies. What, if anything, those antibodies do there is unknown. http://www.physorg.com/news172779803.html Medicine & Health Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:50:01 EST news172779803 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers have identified a mechanism that may keep a well known signaling molecule from eroding bone and inflaming joints, according to an early study published online today in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. http://www.physorg.com/news172775765.html Medicine & Health Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:30:17 EST news172775765 X-linked lymphoproliferative disease (XLP) is a rare inherited immunodeficiency most commonly caused by deficiency in the protein SAP. http://www.physorg.com/news172171548.html Medicine & Health Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:30:01 EST news172171548 Blame your brain for sabotaging your efforts to get back on track after splurging on an extra scoop of ice cream or that second burger during Friday night's football game. http://www.physorg.com/news172132765.html Medicine & Health Mon, 14 Sep 2009 07:40:18 EST news172132765 In 2004, Jeremy Luban and colleagues from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, reported that New World owl monkeys (Aotus genus) make a fusion protein - AoT5Cyp - that potently blocks HIV-1 infection. The human genome encodes the equivalent of the 2 components of AoT5Cyp (i.e., TRIM5 and cyclophilin A), but humans unfortunately do not make the T5Cyp fusion protein. http://www.physorg.com/news171649700.html Medicine & Health Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:50:02 EST news171649700 One way in which men and women differ is in their expression of liver proteins that control a large number of whole-body processes such as energy generation and lipid and steroid hormone production and turnover. Now, Walter Wahli and colleagues, at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, have identified a new mechanism underlying this differential expression of proteins in male and female mice. http://www.physorg.com/news171093839.html Medicine & Health Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:04:22 EST news171093839 Protein S, a well-known anticoagulant protein, keeps the blood flowing in more than one way, discovered researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. The protein contributes to the formation and function of healthy blood vessels. http://www.physorg.com/news171050977.html Medicine & Health Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:30:01 EST news171050977 When bees sting, they pump into their victims a peptide toxin called melittin that destroys cell membranes. Now, by encapsulating this extremely potent molecule within a nanoparticle, researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have created a potential new type of anticancer therapy with the potential to target a wide range of tumors. This work was reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. http://www.physorg.com/news170690607.html Nanotechnology Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:10:02 EST news170690607 Crosstalk between cells lining the lung (epithelial cells) and airway smooth muscle cells is important in lung development. However, it has also been shown to contribute to several lung diseases, including asthma and pulmonary hypertension. http://www.physorg.com/news169750998.html Medicine & Health Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:10:01 EST news169750998 New research led by scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have found a drug target that suggests a potent way to kill colon cancers that resist current drugs aimed at blocking a molecule found on the surface of cells. http://www.physorg.com/news169751933.html Medicine & Health Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:10:02 EST news169751933 Mad cow disease is caused by the accumulation of an abnormal protein, the prion, in the brain of an affected patient. Outside of the brain, very little is known about prions. Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, researchers have, for the first time, identified the prion as a biomarker for pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly cancers in humans; the five year survival rate is less than 10 percent. http://www.physorg.com/news169751882.html Medicine & Health Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:50:01 EST news169751882 Pediatric researchers have resolved an apparent contradiction in the field of prenatal cell transplantation - a medical approach that holds future promise in correcting sickle cell disease and other serious congenital blood disorders. In a new study in animals, the researchers showed that the mother's immune response interferes with the offspring's earlier ability to tolerate transplanted donor cells. http://www.physorg.com/news169704026.html Medicine & Health Mon, 17 Aug 2009 05:10:01 EST news169704026 Bone cells known as osteoblasts were recently shown to have a role in controlling the biochemical reactions that generate energy via secretion of the molecule osteocalcin. Gerard Karsenty and colleagues, at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, therefore hypothesized that osteoblasts express a regulatory gene(s) that controls this osteoblast function and then identified Atf4 as this regulatory gene in mice. http://www.physorg.com/news169146469.html Medicine & Health Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:10:01 EST news169146469 Muscular dystrophy, a group of inherited diseases characterized by progressive skeletal muscle weakness, can be caused by mutations in any one of a number of genes. Another gene can now be added to this list, as Yukiko Hayashi and colleagues, at the National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Japan, have now identified mutations in a gene not previously linked to muscular dystrophy as causative of a form of the disease in five nonconsanguineous Japanese patients. http://www.physorg.com/news169150841.html Medicine & Health Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:40:01 EST news169150841 (PhysOrg.com) -- When bees sting, they pump poison into their victims. Now the toxin in bee venom has been harnessed to kill tumor cells by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The researchers attached the major component of bee venom to nano-sized spheres that they call nanobees. http://www.physorg.com/news169150957.html Nanotechnology Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:23:02 EST news169150957 Edith Hessel and colleagues, at Dynavax Technologies Corporation, Berkeley, have identified the reason that humans and rodents respond differently to a molecule that is being developed to treat allergic diseases. http://www.physorg.com/news169147890.html Medicine & Health Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:00:05 EST news169147890 Scientists have linked an overactive response by one of the immune system's key weapons against infection - natural killer, or NK, cells - to the onset of biliary atresia in infants, a disease where blocked bile ducts can cause severe liver damage and death. http://www.physorg.com/news167476968.html Medicine & Health Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:40:02 EST news167476968 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have discovered a new way of killing cancer cells in a breakthrough that could eventually lead to new treatments for a range of different cancers. http://www.physorg.com/news167408029.html Medicine & Health Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:14:27 EST news167408029 In a major advance in obesity and diabetes research, Yale School of Medicine scientists have found that reducing levels of a key enzyme in the brain decreased appetites and increased energy levels. http://www.physorg.com/news167329705.html Medicine & Health Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:30:02 EST news167329705 Aggressive forms of cancer are often driven by the abnormal over-expression of cancer-promoting genes, also known as oncogenes. http://www.physorg.com/news167329390.html Medicine & Health Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:23:48 EST news167329390