Health and Medicine

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have discovered a new process by which HIV damages the immune system. They demonstrated that the portion of lymph nodes called the T cell zone is significantly damaged by chronic inflammation, which causes fibrosis. This is important because the T cell zone is where a significant portion of the human immune response occurs. The finding of accumulation of scar tissue in this portion of the lymph node may explain why aggressive anti-retroviral therapy (ART) do

More children are treated in the U.S. with antibiotics for inflammation of the middle ear, or otitis media, than any other child health problem. More than five million cases are diagnosed every year. But now, a scholarly review of over one hundred studies by a U.Va. pediatrician concludes that antibiotics help only one in eight children with ear infections.

Dr. J. Owen Hendley, professor of pediatrics and a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases, writes in the Oct. 10 edition of the Ne

NASA researchers are conducting Earth Science research that may one day allow public health officials to better track and predict the spread of West Nile Virus. NASA’s goal is to provide people on the front lines of public health with innovative technologies, data and a unique vantage point from space through satellites, all tailored into useful tools and databases for streamlining efforts to combat the disease.

NASA’s Public Health Applications Program focuses the results of research occu

Findings published in this month’s issue of Clinical Cancer Research and featured on the journal’s cover, may bring researchers one-step closer to the development of tumor markers to detect colon cancer early, before it has had a chance to spread and when it is easier to cure, say researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI). These tumor markers – elevated levels of proteins or other substances in the blood, urine or tissue that indicate the presence of cancer – als

Research to Aid Astronauts Also Could Help Bed-Ridden Patients on Earth

These boots weren’t made for walkin’, but “space boots” under development at the University of Houston may help astronauts stay healthy and readjust more quickly to walking again on terra firma.

University of Houston researchers have developed technology that could help combat the loss of muscle mass, strength and coordination experienced by astronauts during long-duration stints in microgravity. The sys

DBC2 gene missing or inactive in 60% of breast cancers examined

Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the University of Washington have discovered a new tumor suppressor gene that is missing or inactive in as many as 60% of breast cancers, and is also altered in lung cancer.

The discovery of the gene, called DBC2 (for deleted in breast cancer) is highly significant because DBC2 is among the first tumor suppressor genes to be clearly associated with sporadic breast