Health and Medicine

Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have averted the onset of neurodegenerative disease in fruit flies by administering medication to flies genetically predisposed to a disorder akin to Parkinson’s disease.

The result suggests a new approach to the treatment of human disorders including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Penn biologist Nancy M. Bonini and graduate student Pavan K. Auluck report the finding in the November issue of Nature Medicine.

The successful transfusion of a cell-free blood product on a 14-year-old Jehovah’s Witness may offer a solution for patients opposed to blood transfusions due to religious or personal beliefs.

“This was the first successful use of a human cell-free hemoglobin solution in a pediatric patient to manage life-threatening anemia due to an autoimmune disease,” says Dr. Brian Kavanagh, professor of medicine at the University of Toronto and staff physician in critical care medicine at T

Better educating physicians, using computers to order drugs and improving the system for policing inappropriate medication use can help reduce potentially deadly errors among cardiovascular patients, according to a new American Heart Association scientific statement published in today’s Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Several reports have blamed medical errors for thousands of adverse events and deaths among patients in recent years. One study estimates that medi

A rapid and inexpensive blood test that measures levels of a hormone predicted the long-term health of patients with heart attack and chest pain, according to a study published in today’s rapid access issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

This hormone – B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) – is elevated when the heart is damaged. A fragment of this hormone called the N-terminal fragment (N-BNP), can provide a clearer picture of a patient’s likelihood of surv

In reality, Ulm was the site of a full-scale trial of the new DELTASS (Disaster Emergency Logistics Telemedicine Advanced Satellites System) system, developed by a team lead by CNES for the European Space Agency (ESA).

DELTASS uses both geo

Scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have unraveled a mysterious connection – a potential mechanism that links brain injuries in infants to an infection in the mother’s placenta.

Their findings, published in the October edition of Pediatrics, could eventually lead to diagnostic tests for infants and mothers that could help prevent brain injury.

“The most critical issue in preventing and treating brain injury in infants is figuring out where the damage begins