Studies and Analyses

A study in the July 2004 issue of the medical journal Cancer Cell provides scientists with new insights into a rare genetic disorder known as Peutz-Jeghers Syndrome (PJS), and suggests that a class of drugs called mTOR inhibitors may be useful for the treatment of the condition, which has been linked to cancers of the gastrointestinal tract, lung, breast, uterus and ovaries. Caused by a mutation that inactivates the tumor suppressor gene, LKB1, PJS is characterized by the development of pigmented sp

For patients with invasive bladder cancer, treatment has typically meant an operation to remove the bladder and nearby organs. This requires up to a week in the hospital and leaves patients with a reconstructed bladder or urostomy bag.

Minimally invasive surgery combined with chemotherapy and radiation therapy has potential in some patients to cure the cancer but preserve the bladder. A new pilot study by University of Michigan Health System researchers found combining radiation therapy an

An international team of scientists has completed the first comprehensive study of the ocean storage of carbon dioxide derived from human activity, called anthropogenic CO2, based on a decade-long survey of global ocean carbon distributions in the 1990s.

The findings, along with those detailed in a companion paper on the impacts of anthropogenic CO2 on the chemistry of the oceans and the potential response of marine animals and plants to changes in CO2 levels, will be published in the July

An innovative study at Robarts Research Institute provides early evidence that hospital MRI scanners can be used to detect distinct brain cell abnormalities that are predictors of multiple sclerosis (MS).

In a preclinical study in rats with a disease similar to the human form, Robarts scientist Dr. Paula Foster used an injection of nano-particles of iron oxide, which exhibit magnetic qualities and can be detected by an MRI scanner.

During the acute inflammatory phase of the disease,

The University of Utah’s John A. Moran Eye Center has received a $100,000 grant from the Stephen A. and Elaine Wynn Charitable Foundation to fund continued research into retinal cell transplantation. The research is expected to help set the stage for human clinical trials of treatments for a blinding eye disease known as Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP).

The funding will support the work of Raymond D. Lund, Ph.D., the Calvin S. and Janeal N. Hatch Presidential Endowed Chair and Professor of Opht

The idea that a woman’s emotional state during pregnancy affects her unborn child has persisted for centuries and has, in recent years, been supported by science. Called the “fetal programming hypothesis,” it theorizes that certain disturbing factors occurring during certain sensitive periods of development in utero can “program” set points in a variety of biological systems in the unborn child. This, then, affects the ability of those biological systems to change later in life, resulting in difficu