A new imaging method successfully identifies miniscule, young blood vessels that form during the development of plaques, according to a study in rabbits led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. These plaques are akin to atherosclerosis in humans, the primary cause of heart attack and stroke.

“We’ve developed a way to take non-invasive images of very early plaques, before they’re detectable by any other means,” says Samuel A. Wickline, M.D., professor of medici

A new form of nanotechnology developed at Stanford University may lead to a better understanding of the life and death of human cells.

Writing in the Nov. 18 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Stanford researchers described how newly created circles of synthetic DNA – called “nanocircles” – could help researchers learn more about the aging process in cells.

“In the long run, we have this dream of making laboratory cells live longer,” said Eric Kool, a pr

Researchers at Stanford University Medical Center have found that selective COX-2 inhibitors – a class of medications widely prescribed for painful inflammatory conditions such as osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis – interfere with the healing process after a bone fracture or cementless joint implant surgery.Their findings, published in the November issue of the Journal of Orthopaedic Research, suggest that patients who regularly take COX-2 inhibitors should switch to a different medication, suc

A group of Italian investigators led by Drs Francesco Fallo (Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Padova) and Dr Nicoletta Sonino (Department of Mental Health, Padova) explores a neglected issue: the relationship between daytime stress and the physiological lowering of blood pressure which should occur during sleep (dipping).

Scarce data are available on the influence of psychological aspects on 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure patterns either in normotensive or hyper

’Surprisingly effective’ says French research team

A new drug that targets tumour blood vessels has produced a surprisingly effective response in its first patient study – shrinking the tumours in a number of patients treated so far, according to researchers carrying out the study at the Institut Gustave Roussy in Villejuif, France.

The drug, SU011248[1], which is given in capsule form, is a signal transduction inhibitor designed to act against several abnormally b

University of Minnesota researchers, with collaborators at the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s National Animal Disease Center in Ames, Iowa, have completed sequencing the genome of the bacteria that causes Johne’s disease, a major chronic wasting disease found in dairy cattle. The bacterium, Mycobacterium paratuberculosis, is considered one of the most important threats to the health of dairy cattle worldwide and may represent a potential risk to the safety of the milk supply. The gene se