An open platform revolutionizes biomedical-image processing

 

Ignacio Arganda, a young researcher from San Sebastián de los Reyes (Madrid) working for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is one of the driving forces behind Fiji, an open source platform that allows for application sharing as a way of improving biomedical-image processing. Arganda explains to SINC that Fiji, which has enjoyed the voluntary collaboration of some 20 developers from all over the world, has become a de facto standard that assists laboratories and microscope companies in their development of more precise products.

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Research yields two ‘firsts’ regarding protein crucial to human cardiac function

 
Florida State University researchers led by physics doctoral student Campion Loong have achieved significant benchmarks in a study of the human cardiac protein alpha-tropomyosin, which is an essential, molecular-level component that controls the heart’s contraction on every beat.

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BUSM researchers find potential key to halt progression, reverse damage from emphysema

 

 

A study led by researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) has shown that a compound used in some skin creams may halt the progression of emphysema and reverse some of the damage caused by the disease. When the compound Gly-His-Lys (GHK) was applied to lung cells from patients with emphysema, normal gene activity in altered cells was restored and damaged aspects of cellular function were repaired.

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Therapies for spinal cord injury: On the cutting edge of clinical translation

The Journal of Neurosurgery (JNS) Publishing Group is proud to announce publication of the NACTN/AOSNA Focus Issue on Spinal Cord Injury, a supplement to the September issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine, which is sponsored by AOSpine North America available in print and online. The online version of the supplement is available free to the public. The focus of this special supplement, which was spearheaded by Dr. Michael Fehlings, Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Toronto and Medical Director of the Krembil Neuroscience Centre at the Toronto Western Hospital, is the development of cutting-edge translational research in the treatment of spinal cord injury (SCI), an often devastating injury that affects 2.5 million people worldwide, many of whom are first faced with it in early adulthood. The topic is addressed in a variety of forms in 17 articles and several editorials.
Many of the studies were conducted by members of the North American Clinical Trials Network (NACTN) for the Treatment of SCI, a consortium of 10 neurosurgery departments supplemented by a data management center and a pharmacological center. The principal investigator for the NACTN is Dr. Robert Grossman, Chairman, Department of Neurosurgery, The Methodist Hospital, Houston. Funded by the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation and the US Department of Defense, the NACTN was established to move molecular- and cell-based discoveries in the protection and regeneration of neuronal pathways from the laboratory to the clinical setting.

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Neuroscience just got faster, cheaper and easier

Richard Gershon has a shiny new toolbox for neuroscientists that will revolutionize their clinical research by making it radically faster, cheaper and more accurate. It also will help researchers recruit children and adults for studies because participation will be much less time consuming.

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‘Hulk’ protein, Grb10, controls muscle growth

 

Scientists have moved closer toward helping people grow big, strong muscles without needing to hit the weight room. Australian researchers have found that by blocking the function of a protein called Grb10 while mice were in the womb, they were considerably stronger and more muscular than their normal counterparts. This discovery appears in the September 2012 issue of The FASEB Journal. Outside of aesthetics, this study has important implications for a wide range of conditions that are worsened by, or cause muscle wasting, such as injury, muscular dystrophy, Type 2 diabetes, and problems produced by muscle inflammation.

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NIH scientists map first steps in flu antibody development

National Institutes of Health scientists have identified how a kind of immature immune cell responds to a part of influenza virus and have traced the path those cells take to generate antibodies that can neutralize a wide range of influenza virus strains. Study researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of NIH, were led by Gary Nabel, M.D., Ph.D., director of NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center. Their findings appear online in advance of print in Nature.

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Scientist creates new cancer drug that is 10 times more potent

 

Legend has it that Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” University of Missouri researchers are doing just that, but instead of building mousetraps, the scientists are targeting cancer drugs. In a new study, MU medicinal chemists have taken an existing drug that is being developed for use in fighting certain types of cancer, added a special structure to it, and created a more potent, efficient weapon against cancer.

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Study pinpoints malignant mesothelioma patients likely to benefit from drug pemetrexed

 

Previous studies have hypothesized that low levels of the enzyme thymidylate synthase (TS) likely mark patients who will benefit from the drug pemetrexed ? but results have been inconclusive at best and at times contradictory. A University of Colorado Cancer Center study recently published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology provides an explanation why: only in combination with high levels of a second enzyme, FPGS, does low TS predict response to pemetrexed in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma.

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How ‘beige’ fat makes the pounds melt away

 

The numbers of obese people are climbing steeply all over the world ? with obvious major consequences for their health. Due to excess food intake and a lack of physical activity, but also due to genetic factors, the risk for overweight people dying from diseases like coronary heart disease, diabetes und atherosclerosis increases. “The body’s fat reserves are actually used as a place to store energy that allows surviving lean times,” says Prof. Dr. Alexander Pfeifer, Director of the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology of the University of Bonn. “But nowadays, hardly anyone in the industrialized nations is exposed to such hunger phases anymore.”

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