http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. (Medical Xpress)—Controlling the symptoms of schizophrenia is the job of antipsychotic drugs which block a set of specific neural signals. But the way these drugs work can lead to a host of severe and debilitating long-term motor side-effects. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-schizophrenia-treatments.html Psychology & Psychiatry Fri, 05 Apr 2013 06:12:35 EST news284361137 Researchers led by biomedical engineering Professor Shy Shoham of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology are testing the power of holography to artificially stimulate cells in the eye, with hopes of developing a new strategy for bionic vision restoration. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-reseachers-holographic-technique-bionic-vision.html Medical research Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:31:58 EST news281111495 A new study published in the March issue of The American Journal of Pathology suggests that cortical type 2 cannabinoid (CB2) receptors might serve as potential therapeutic targets for cerebral ischemia. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-cortical-cannabinoid-receptors-ameliorates-ischemic.html Medical research Thu, 21 Feb 2013 11:52:43 EST news280669957 Scientists at the Forsyth have gained new insight on how Tuberculosis (TB) remains a global epidemic. Although drugs have been available to fight TB for 50 years, the disease still infects nearly 2.2 billion people worldwide and causes 1.7 million annual deaths. This is largely attributed to the bacteria's ability to stay dormant in the human body and later resurface as active disease. The Forsyth team, and its collaborators from Stanford University, has recently discovered that Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacteria that causes TB, can lay dormant and thrive within bone marrow stem cells. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-scientists-gain-latent-tuberculosis.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Wed, 30 Jan 2013 14:00:01 EST news278766332 Scientists at the Center for Translational Medicine at the Temple University School of Medicine are inching closer to solving a long-standing mystery in sepsis, a complex and often life-threatening condition that affects more than 400,000 people in the U.S. every year. By blocking the activity of a protein, STIM1, in cells that line the insides of blood vessels in mice, they have halted a cascade of cellular events that culminates in the out-of-control inflammation that marks sepsis, and protected lungs from severe damage. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-strategies-sepsis.html Medical research Fri, 25 Jan 2013 12:00:01 EST news278335012 (Medical Xpress)—Even when at rest, the human body is a flurry of activity. Like a microscopic metropolis locked in a state of perpetual rush hour traffic, the trillions of cells that make us who we are work feverishly policing the streets, making repairs, building new structures and delivering important cargo throughout the bustling organic society. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-discovery-drugs-cancer-diseases.html Medical research Fri, 11 Jan 2013 09:47:16 EST news277120019 (Medical Xpress)—New research demonstrates that the cellular metabolism of certain immune cells is closely linked to their function, which includes protecting against viral infections and the development of tumours. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-cellular-metabolism-arms-cells-viruses.html Medical research Mon, 24 Dec 2012 13:28:11 EST news275578081 Small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) are a potent new drug class that can silence a disease-causing gene, but delivering them to a target cell can be challenging. An innovative delivery approach that dramatically increases the efficacy of an siRNA drug targeted to the liver and has made it possible to test the drug in non-human primates is described in an article in Nucleic Acid Therapeutics. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-gene-silencing-drugs-effective-delivery.html Medical research Fri, 21 Dec 2012 12:49:07 EST news275316406 Michael Caplan shares authorship of a paper on cancer treatment research published this week in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-asu-bioengineer-key-contribution-cancer.html Cancer Mon, 17 Dec 2012 08:23:19 EST news274954993 Japanese researchers have created novel cell growth factor FGFC that is considered effective in preventing and treating injury due to high-dose radiation. Until now, there have been insufficient drugs effective in suppression of individual deaths due to radiation exposure. AIST has created the novel, highly stable cell growth factor FGFC and investigated its effect on serious impact to life caused by high-level radiation exposure by experiments on mice. Mice administered FGFC either before or after radiation exposure experienced prolonged survival, demonstrating that FGFC could be effective in preventing and treating fatal radiation injury. The researchers plan to perform a detailed safety evaluation of FGFC. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-cell-growth-factor-injury-high-level.html Medical research Fri, 02 Nov 2012 10:09:46 EST news271069777 To transport substances from the site of their production to their destination, the body needs a sophisticated transport and sorting system. Various receptors in and on the cells recognize certain molecules, pack them and ensure that they are transported to the right place. One of these receptors is Sortilin. It is present in the cells of the nervous system, the liver, and the immune system. Studies by Stefanie Herda and Dr. Armin Rehm (Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, MDC, Berlin-Buch and Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin) and the immunologist Dr. Uta Höpken (MDC) have now shown that the receptor Sortilin plays an important role in the function of the immune system. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-elucidate-pathway-immune-substances.html Immunology Thu, 18 Oct 2012 12:00:10 EST news269775338 Leukaemia arises as a result of genetic or epigenetic alterations in blood cells, leading to an aberrant accumulation of undifferentiated blasts. Understanding the molecular pathogenesis and aetiology of infant leukaemia induced by the MLL-AF4 fusion gene was the subject of the Leukaemogenesis project. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-infant-leukaemia.html Cancer Mon, 15 Oct 2012 07:32:21 EST news269505136 Mayo Clinic researchers have found a novel way to monitor real-time chemical changes in the brains of patients undergoing deep brain stimulation (DBS). The groundbreaking insight will help physicians more effectively use DBS to treat brain disorders such as Parkinson's disease, depression and Tourette syndrome. The findings are published in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-tool-track-real-time-chemical-brain.html Neuroscience Mon, 16 Jul 2012 00:00:02 EST news261573831 Mitochondria, tiny structures within each cell that regulate metabolism and energy use, may be a promising new target for cancer therapy, according to a new study. Manipulation of two biochemical signals that regulate the numbers of mitochondria in cells could shrink human lung cancers transplanted into mice, a team of Chicago researchers report in the journal FASEB. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-energy-network-cells-cancer-therapy.html Cancer Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:00:01 EST news249043340 Immune cells capable of attacking healthy organs "see" their targets differently than do protective immune cells that attack viruses, according to work published online this week in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-autoreactive-cells.html Medical research Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:00:07 EST news247751918 One of the holy grails in diabetes research is to discover molecules that stimulate beta cell growth and to find drugs that target these molecules. Now, JDRF-funded researchers in collaboration with the pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La Roche, have done both, discovering not only a protein that regulates beta cell growth, but also a chemical compound that stimulates it. The work appears in the September 7 issue of Cell Metabolism. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-scientists-uncover-ways-pancreatic-beta.html Medical research Tue, 06 Sep 2011 14:48:20 EST news234539287 New research suggests that blood stem cells can be involved in the generation of leukemia, even when the leukemia is caused by the abnormal proliferation of mature cells. The study, published by Cell Press in the August 16th issue of the journal Cancer Cell, may guide future strategies aimed at identifying therapeutic targets for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-stem-cells-central-pathogenesis-mature.html Cancer Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:20:37 EST news232633216 Have a tough time remembering where you put your keys, learning a new language or recalling names at a cocktail party? New research from the Lisman Laboratory at Brandeis University points to a molecule that is central to the process by which memories are stored in the brain. A paper published in the June 22 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience describes the new findings. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-memory-molecule-key-protein-complex.html Neuroscience Thu, 23 Jun 2011 11:56:45 EST news228048989 After eight years of work, researchers have unearthed what has been a well-kept secret of our immune system's success. The findings published online on June 9th in Immunity offer an explanation for how specialized immune cells are able to kill infected or cancerous cells without killing themselves in the process. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-killer-immune-cells.html Medical research Thu, 09 Jun 2011 14:02:57 EST news226846959