Compelling evidence shows that fine particulate matters (PMs) from air pollution penetrate lower airways and are associated with adverse health effects even within concentrations below those recommended by the WHO. A paper reported a dose-dependent link between carbon content in alveolar macrophages (assessed only by optical microscopy) and the decline in lung function. Continue reading
A way to potentially reprogram cancer cells back to normalcy has been discovered by researchers on Mayo Clinic’s Florida campus. The finding, published in Nature Cell Biology, represents “an unexpected new biology that provides the code, the software for turning off cancer,” says the study’s senior investigator, Panos Anastasiadis, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Cancer Biology on Mayo Clinic’s Florida campus. Continue reading
A new biologically inspired “injectable cryogel whole-cell cancer vaccine” combines patient-specific harvested cancer cells and immune-stimulating chemicals or biological molecules to help the body attack cancer. It has been developed by scientists at Harvard’s Wyss Institute and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Continue reading
Everything about China is big, including its cancer problem. In some wealthier cities, like Beijing, cancer is now believed to be the most frequent killer. Air pollution, high rates of smoking, and notorious “cancer villages” scarred by industrial pollution are increasing death rates around the country. Continue reading
Swiss scientists have discovered encasing DNA in glass and chilling it down can preserve data encoded in it for millions of years, moving them closer to an entirely new, and better, way to store the world’s information. Continue reading
A genetic phenomenon called chromothripsis, or “chromosome shattering,” may have spontaneously cured the first person to be documented with WHIM syndrome, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The patient was the subject of a 1964 study that first described the disorder, a syndrome of recurrent infections, warts and cancer caused by the inability of immune cells, particularly infection-fighting neutrophils, to leave the bone marrow and enter the bloodstream. In 2003, researchers identified the genetic mutations responsible for the disease, which occur in the CXCR4 gene. Continue reading
Leprosy is an ancient and debilitating infectious disease largely quelled with medicine in the past several decades. Yet its persistence in some developing countries has mystified scientists, who long have thought the bacteria that cause the disease cannot survive in the environment. Continue reading
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