Health and Medicine

Latest research at Oxford University’s Glycobiology Institute has provided new leads towards the development of an oral contraceptive for men. The advantages of the substance at the centre of the research, an alkylated imino sugar (NB-DNJ), are that it does not affect reproductive hormones, its effects are easily reversed and it is undergoing clinical evaluation in other contexts.

NB-DNJ interferes with the development of sperm cells in such a way that they become very poor swimmers, highly

A Mayo Clinic study of more than 41,000 postmenopausal women in Iowa provides new evidence that the most common type of lung cancer in women is more closely linked to smoking cigarettes than previously recognized. The findings of the study will be published in the Dec. 15, 2002 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Lung cancer has been the leading cause of cancer death in women for more than a decade. In 2000, about 68,000 American women died of lung cancer. That’s compared to

The protein that forms the protective capsid surrounding the West Nile virus genetic material may contribute to the deadly inflammation associated with the virus. West Nile virus, which has rapidly spread across the United States, causes neurological symptoms and encephalitis, which can result in paralysis or death. According to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, the West Nile virus capsid (WNV-Cp) is a destructive protein that can trigger apoptosis – the automatic self

Novel methods of measuring magnetic fields outside the head give further insights to the functioning of the human brain. In his doctoral thesis “Estimating Neural Currents from Neuromagnetic Measurements”, Kimmo Uutela developed new methods for finding electrical activity of the brain, which enable easier identification of different brain areas. The Finnish Association of Graduate Engineers (TEK) and the Engineering Society in Finland (TFiF) honoured Uutela’s work with their joint doctoral thesis awa

Authors of a research letter in this week’s issue of THE LANCET provide further evidence that the effect of sunlight on neurotransmitters in the brain plays a significant role in seasonal mood disorders.

The success of phototherapy (ultraviolet light therapy to stimulate brain neurotransmitter activity) and drugs that prevent the reuptake of the neurotransmitter serotonin have suggested that serotonin itself has a role in the development of seasonal depression. However, concentrations

Rensselaer researchers have developed an automated system, called RPI-Trace3D, that can swiftly map capillaries in a live tumor. What used to take days of manually tracing the vessels, now takes two minutes. The diagnostic tool, in use at Harvard Medical School and at Northeastern University, is a boon to oncologists who aim to understand how blood vessels form in tumors.

For the first time, medical scientists can quickly and precisely measure blood vessel properties to quantify the effects