news from the lab

Medicine/Pharmacology - 22.02
Augmented play helps autism
Augmented play helps autism Playing with interactive toys could help children with autism to improve their social interaction with other children, say University of Sussex psychologists. William Farr and Nicola Yuill, from the Children and Technology Lab at Sussex, have investigated with Steve Hinske from Zurich in Switzerland how toys might be adapted to be more beneficial to autistic children and perhaps even act as a therapeutic tool.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Life Sciences - 22.02
Malaria immunity in the spotlight
Mothers who are treated for malaria may pass on lower levels of natural immunity to their young, animal studies show. University scientists investigated the impact of anti-malarial drugs on the levels of antibodies passed from female mice to their offspring.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Agronomy/Food Science - 22.02
Exposure to micronutrients prior to pregnancy has been associated with gene modifications in offspring
Scientists find that micronutrients affect methylation, which has been associated with changes in the immune system.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Life Sciences - 22.02
Study closes debate on folic acid and heart disease
Taking folic acid supplements is not going to have any meaningful effect on your risk of coronary heart disease. That's the conclusion of a comprehensive study led by Oxford University researchers that pretty much closes the door on this debate once and for all.

Life Sciences - Medicine/Pharmacology - 21.02
Cocaine and the teen brain: Yale research offers insights into addiction
When first exposed to cocaine, the adolescent brain launches a strong defensive reaction designed to minimize the drug's effects, Yale and other scientists have found. Now two new studies by a Yale team identify key genes that regulate this response and show that interfering with this reaction dramatically increases a mouse's sensitivity to cocaine.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Life Sciences - 21.02
What cancer cells need to travel
Cancer cells must prepare for travel before invading new tissues, but new Cornell research has found a possible way to stop these cells from ever hitting the road. Researchers have identified two key proteins that are needed to get cells moving and have uncovered a new pathway that treatments could block to immobilize mutant cells and keep cancer from spreading, said Richard Cerione, Goldwin Smith Professor of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology at Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine.

Medicine/Pharmacology - 21.02
‘Stealth’ properties of cancer-causing genetic mutations identified
Scientists have discovered that cancer-causing genetic mutations have better-disguised electronic signatures than other mutations - a trait which could help them fly under the radar of the body's defence mechanisms.

Agronomy/Food Science - Medicine/Pharmacology - 20.02
Faulty fat sensor implicated in obesity and liver disease
Imperial College London Media Release Defects in a protein led by researchers at Imperial College London. The findings highlight a promising target for new drugs to treat obesity and metabolic disorders.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Life Sciences - 17.02
UCLA discovery that migrating cells ’turn right’ has implications for engineering tissues, organs
What if we could engineer a liver or kidney from a patient's own stem cells? How about helping regenerate tissue damaged by diseases such as osteoporosis and arthritis? A new UCLA study bring scientists a little closer to these possibilities by providing a better understanding how tissue is formed and organized in the body.

Medicine/Pharmacology - 17.02
Study Provides Roadmap for Improved Care of Epilepsy Emergencies by Paramedics
Injecting epilepsy patients with medication via an autoinjector - similar to the EpiPens used to treat serious allergic reactions - works more quickly to stop seizures than delivery of a drug via IV on board ambulances, according to a national study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine .

Life Sciences - Medicine/Pharmacology - 16.02
Study proves nobody is genetically perfect
Every person carries on average 100 variants that disable genes - yet very few suffer ill effects, reports an international team of researchers led by Yale University and Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the Feb.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Life Sciences - 16.02
When body clock runs down, immune system takes time off
The circadian clock is a finely tuned genetic mechanism that regulates our sleep cycle and key metabolic changes during the 24-hour cycle. It also may help determine whether we get sick or not, according to a new Yale School of Medicine study published online Feb 16 in the journal Immunity.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Life Sciences - 16.02
Down’s syndrome stem cells used to model Alzheimer’s
One of the biggest challenges facing dementia researchers at the moment is a lack of good ways to track the disease over time.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Administration/Government - 15.02
Tool assessing how community health centers deliver ’medical home’ care may be flawed
On the health front, the poor often have at least two things going against them: a lack of insurance and chronic illnesses, of which diabetes is among the most common. The federal Affordable Care Act would expand the capacity of the nation's 8,000 community health centers to provide care for low-income, largely minority patients — from the current 20 million to about 40 million by 2015.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Physics/Astronomy - 15.02
New method makes it easier to treat prostate and pancreatic cancer
Laser light in combination with certain drugs – known as photodynamic therapy – can destroy cancer tumours, but is today used mostly to cure skin cancer. The reason that internal tumours are not treated with the method is that the technology does not exist to check that the precise amount of light is administered.