http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Scientists at the University of Southampton have taken a significant and important step in keeping people safe from the most common form of meningitis in the UK. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-bridging-gap-meningitis-strains-vaccinated.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Wed, 27 Feb 2013 08:53:47 EST news281177531 Fetal alcohol syndrome is the leading preventable cause of developmental disorders in developed countries. And fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), a range of alcohol-related birth defects that includes fetal alcohol syndrome, is thought to affect as many as 1 in 100 children born in the United States. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-pathway-linked-fetal-alcohol-molecular.html Medical research Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:48:42 EST news280601315 Today, more than 500 million people are suffering from a lack of adequate protein in their diet. Each year, the number of human beings increases by 80 million, a figure which is equivalent to the present population of Germany. Thus, providing enough food, particularly sufficient protein for the increasing populace is a challenging task for societies all over the world. On a prospective basis, a progressively smaller proportion of human protein requirement can be provided by animal proteins such as meat, eggs, and milk. "However, by feeding valuable plant protein to animals, almost two third of it is wasted as it is transformed into animal protein," Professor Dr Gerhard Jahreis, nutritionist at Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany), says. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-soya-protein-rapeseed-nutritionists.html Health Mon, 28 Jan 2013 08:11:51 EST news278583047 As many as 50 percent of all human protein-coding genes are regulated by microRNA (miRNA) molecules. While some miRNAs impact onset and progression of cancer, others can actually suppress the development of malignant tumors and are useful in cancer therapy. They can also serve as potential biomarkers for early cancer detection. In a new issue of Cancer Biomarkers, investigators report on non-coding miRNAs as appealing biomarkers for malignancy. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-micrornas-opportunities-cancer-therapy-diagnosis.html Cancer Wed, 19 Dec 2012 17:54:23 EST news275162056 Scientists have discovered that injecting a novel human protein into muscle affected by Duchenne muscular dystrophy significantly increases its size and strength, findings that could lead to a therapy akin to the use of insulin by diabetics. These results were published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Dr. Julia von Maltzahn and Dr. Michael Rudnicki, the Ottawa scientist who discovered muscle stem cells in adults. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-protein-muscular-dystrophy-treatment.html Medical research Tue, 27 Nov 2012 08:15:24 EST news273226514 A research team at Aarhus University reveals a surprising interplay between the ends of human genes: If a protein-coding gene is too short it becomes inactive! The findings also explain how some short genes have adapted to circumvent this handicap. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-length-gene.html Genetics Tue, 02 Oct 2012 11:03:42 EST news268394615 The more that we understand the brain, the more complex it becomes. The same can be said about the genetics and neurobiology of psychiatric disorders. For "Mendelian" disorders, like Huntington disease, mutation of a single gene predictably produces a single clinical disorder, following relatively simple genetic principals. Compared to Mendelian disorders, understanding bipolar disorder has been extremely challenging. Its biology is not well understood and its genetics are complex. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-biological-matrix-bipolar-disorder.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 20 Aug 2012 10:24:23 EST news264677053 (Medical Xpress) -- New ways that viruses manipulate the human immune response have been revealed in a research paper just published in Nature involving TCD scientists. Dr Orla Mulhern and Professor Andrew Bowie, School of Biochemistry and Immunology based in the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute were part of the multi-disciplinary, multi-centre study comprising immunologists, virologists, biochemists and bioinformaticians from across Europe. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-ways-viruses-affect-human-immune.html Immunology Fri, 03 Aug 2012 07:52:15 EST news263199129 (Medical Xpress) -- Natural molecules that protect the body against disease are finding their way into the treatment of advanced cancer. Prof. Michel Revel of the Department of Molecular Genetics has played a leading role in the discovery and study of two natural molecules now employed as drugs. In the late 1970s, Prof. Revel isolated the gene for interferon-beta, a human protein that fights viral infection in the body and is used as a drug against a variety of ills, including certain types of cancer—particularly glioma and non-small-cell lung carcinoma. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-mother-nature.html Medical research Tue, 01 May 2012 10:30:06 EST news255084391 Oral bacteria that escape into the bloodstream are able to cause blood clots and trigger life-threatening endocarditis. Further research could lead to new drugs to tackle infective heart disease, say scientists presenting their work at the Society for General Microbiology's Spring Conference in Dublin this week. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-dental-plaque-bacteria-trigger-blood.html Cardiology Mon, 26 Mar 2012 04:54:30 EST news251956461 Uncovering the network of genes regulated by a crucial molecule involved in cancer called mTOR, which controls protein production inside cells, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have discovered how a protein "master regulator" goes awry, leading to metastasis, the fatal step of cancer. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-analysis-mtor-protein-drugs-defeat.html Cancer Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:00:06 EST news249137019 (Medical Xpress) -- A team of researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health recently discovered a new protein that enables HIV to destroy human cells. The finding provides scientists with a critical glimpse into the complex interactions between HIV proteins and human proteins, a discovery that could potentially lead to new HIV drug therapies. The study was published in the January 19, 2012 issue of Nature. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-protein-discovery-hiv-drugs.html HIV & AIDS Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:37:55 EST news246875859 A shot that could lower cholesterol, a connection between blood type and stroke, and how income affects heart health were among more than 4,000 papers presented this week at the American Heart Association's 84th annual scientific meeting in Orlando. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-heart-experts.html Cardiology Mon, 21 Nov 2011 14:40:01 EST news241098478 Researchers at Rutgers University and the University of Texas at Austin have reported a discovery that could help scientists develop drugs to fight seasonal influenza epidemics caused by the common influenza B strain. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-discovery-influenza-virus-exclusively-infects.html Medical research Thu, 25 Aug 2011 14:14:50 EST news233500476