Science and Health News

Neuherberg, March 14, 2016. Scientists at Helmholtz Zentrum München, in collaboration with researchers from Technical University of Munich and the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD), have shown that diet-induced obesity and diabetes can be epigenetically* inherited by the offspring via both the oocytes and the sperm. The results were recently published in the journal ‘Nature Genetics’.

Scientists at UCL have made a groundbreaking discovery in understanding how the genetic complexity of tumours can be recognised and exploited by the immune system, even when the disease is at its most advanced stages.

Researchers at the Novosibirsk-based Rzhanov Institute of Semiconductor Physics in Siberia have come up with a technique enabling very fast identification of hepatitis and other viruses. The new diagnostics method will be used in lab research, Russia’s Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported.

Scientists from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) and The New York Stem Cell Foundation Research Institute (NYSCF) have succeeded in generating a new type of embryonic stem cell that carries a single copy of the human genome, instead of the two copies typically found in normal stem cells. The scientists reported their findings today in the journal Nature.

TAU researchers combine electronics with living tissues to create a self-regulating cardiac patch More than 25% of the people on the national US waiting list for a heart will die before receiving one. Despite this discouraging figure, heart transplants are still on the rise. There just hasn’t been an alternative. Until now.

Researchers have identified a link between the expression of a cancer-related gene and cell-surface molecules that protect tumors from the immune system. A cancer-associated protein called Myc directly controls the expression of two molecules known to protect tumor cells from the host’s immune system, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

A team of investigators from Houston Methodist Research Institute may have transformed the treatment of metastatic triple negative breast cancer by creating the first drug to successfully eliminate lung metastases in mice. This landmark study appears today in Nature Biotechnology (early online edition).

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have taken some initial steps toward the creation of bioengineered human hearts using donor hearts stripped of components that would generate an immune response and cardiac muscle cells generated from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which could come from a potential recipient. The investigators described their accomplishments — which include developing an automated bioreactor system capable of supporting a whole human heart during the recellularization process — earlier this year in Circulation Research.