http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. (Medical Xpress)—When it's dark, and we start to fall asleep, most of us think we're tired because our bodies need rest. Yet circadian rhythms affect our bodies not just on a global scale, but at the level of individual organs, and even genes. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-epigenetic-daily-liver.html Genetics Tue, 11 Dec 2012 08:46:51 EST news274437981 Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have managed to graft beta cells into the eyes of mice in order to study them in a living organism over a prolonged period of time. As a result, the group and a team of colleagues from the University of Miami have gained detailed knowledge of how the autonomic nervous system regulates beta-cell insulin secretion. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-nerves-insulin-secretion.html Medical research Mon, 10 Dec 2012 15:00:01 EST news274361411 Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) provides a quantitative basis for predicting the pulmonary airflow patterns that carry inhaled materials inside the body. This is not only potentially useful for establishing safer exposure limits to airborne pollutants but also for improving targeted drug delivery in patients with pulmonary disease. One prerequisite is that simulated predictions be thoroughly tested in a living organism, where respiratory airflows depend not only on airway shape and curvature but also on local lung mechanics and associated differences between health and disease.  http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-lung-imaging.html Medical research Wed, 26 Sep 2012 11:20:01 EST news267875504 New cancer drugs must be thoroughly tested in preclinical models, often in mice, before they can be offered to cancer patients for the first time in phase I clinical trials. Key components of this process include pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies, which evaluate how the drug acts on a living organism. These studies measure the pharmacologic response and the duration and magnitude of response observed relative to the concentration of the drug at an active site in the organism. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-genetically-engineered-preclinical-pharmacodynamic-response.html Cancer Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:18:12 EST news267279479 Scientists at UCLA have identified a new compound that could treat certain types of genetic disorders in muscles. It is a big first step in what they hope will lead to human clinical trials for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-compound-duchenne-md-inherited-diseases.html Genetics Wed, 27 Jun 2012 16:03:16 EST news260031774 Van Andel Institute announces that researchers at Lund University in Sweden have published a study detailing how Parkinson's disease spreads through the brain. Experiments in rat models uncover a process previously used to explain mad cow disease, in which misfolded proteins travel from sick to healthy cells. This model has never before been identified so clearly in a living organism, and the breakthrough brings researchers one step closer to a disease-modifying drug for Parkinson's. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-scientists-closer-parkinson-drug.html Parkinson's & Movement disorders Wed, 27 Jun 2012 10:40:44 EST news260012418 (Medical Xpress) -- Expanding on previous research providing proof-of-principal that human stem cells can be genetically engineered into HIV-fighting cells, a team of UCLA researchers have now demonstrated that these cells can actually attack HIV-infected cells in a living organism. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-stem-cells-hiv.html HIV & AIDS Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:00:01 EST news253444610 Researchers from UCLA's cancer and stem cell centers have demonstrated for the first time that blood stem cells can be engineered to create cancer-killing T-cells that seek out and attack a human melanoma. The researchers believe this approach could be useful in 40 percent of Caucasians with this malignancy. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-blood-stem-cells-melanoma.html Cancer Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:00:09 EST news241714283 Professor Jean-Christophe Leroux and his colleagues have developed a method with which they can observe gluten-splitting enzymes in a living organism. This is an important step towards developing effective digestive proteins that can be used against coeliac disease. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-abdomens-reveal-enzyme.html Medical research Tue, 16 Aug 2011 10:40:25 EST news232710005 Scientists at the University of Michigan Health System have for the first time demonstrated how memory circuits in the brain refine themselves in a living organism through two distinct types of competition between cells. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-competition-brain-cells-spurs-memory.html Neuroscience Thu, 23 Jun 2011 04:30:02 EST news228020225