Science and Health News

By identifying the role of a specific protein in the development of obesity-related liver diseases, UNIGE researchers pave the way for better diagnosis, and potentially better treatment.

Traditional cardiovascular risk factors often assessed in an annual physical, such as blood pressure, cholesterol levels, diabetes, and smoking status, are at least as valuable in predicting who will develop coronary heart disease (CHD) as a sophisticated genetic test that surveys millions of different points in DNA, a study led by a UT Southwestern Medical Center researcher suggests.

Current tests for male fertility include measuring the concentration and motility of spermatozoa. However, other characteristics of sperm, such as their ability to follow a chemical trail to the egg, can influence the likelihood of fertilization. Now, researchers reporting in Analytical Chemistry have devised a quick and convenient microfluidic chip to assess this chemotactic response of spermatozoa, which could help provide a more complete picture of a man’s fertility.

Too many patients with cancers like multiple myeloma relapse after treatment. This grim reality motivated researchers at Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah (U of U) to try to  improve the depth and durability of treatment response in multiple myeloma through a new cancer cell targeting mechanism.

Fertility doctors in France have announced the birth of the first baby to be born to a cancer patient from an immature egg that was matured in the laboratory, frozen, then thawed and fertilised five years later.

A new way of making bone-replacement materials that allows for cells to grow around and inside them has been developed by researchers at the University of Birmingham.

An international team of scientists has identified a protein which is strongly linked to the commonest cause of blindness in developed countries when its levels are raised in the blood. The discovery is a major step forward in the understanding of age-related macular degeneration, which affects 1.5 million people in the UK alone.

What if we could replace a patient’s damaged blood vessels with brand new ones produced in a laboratory? This is the challenge set by Inserm researcher Nicolas L’Heureux, who is working on the human extracellular matrix – the structural support of human tissues that is found around practically all of the body’s cells.