Science article - March 27, 2018
Norwegian scientists link common medicines to Parkinson’s risk
Asthma and high blood pressure drugs influence risk of developing parkinson’s disease. Outwardly, Parkinson’s disease (PD) appears as tremors and stiffness. In the brain, neurons fill with aggregates of α-synuclein protein. Reducing α-synuclein decreases symptoms. An international team, using data on 4.6 million Norwegians over 11 years, now report in Science that two common types […]
Science article - January 1, 2018
Could chocolate lower risk of a heart condition?
Danish researchers link chocolate consumption and atrial fibrillation. Few people can resist chocolate. That’s why a paper from US, Canadian, and Danish scientists in Heart, from the British Medical Journal group, was hailed as good news. The study showed that regularly eating chocolate might reduce risk of atrial fibrillation (AF), which is an irregular heartbeat. Professor […]
Science article - December 25, 2017
The undervalued endocrine system
Insulin, tamoxifen, EPO – just a few examples of life-saving, blockbuster drugs from endocrinology research. “Hormones are responsible for homeostasis, maintaining our internal environment,” says Professor Saffron Whitehead, Department of Basic Medical Sciences, St George’s University of London, “so they regulate every system in the body.” This puts endocrinology, the study of hormones, at the […]
Science article - October 12, 2017
Spinning silk – without the spiders
Spider silk proteins have medical and research uses and are remarkably soluble. Spider silk is lightweight, strong, and nontoxic. It has biomedical applications in surgery, transplants, and as a matrix for culturing cells. The genes for spidroins, which are spider silk proteins, are known. Generating fibers is challenging, however. To make spider silk in vitro, […]
Science article - July 7, 2017
Boosting CHO cell production with a systems approach
A new public resource for optimizing a common biofactory Biotherapeutic proteins including antibody therapies are often produced in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. A Cell Systems paper has novel insights about these cells and a new model for improving their productivity. The senior author is Nathan Lewis, who codirects systems research on CHO cells for […]
Science article - December 19, 2016
Y chromosome loss links to cancer and Alzheimer’s
Men have a shorter lifespan than women and Uppsala University researchers might have an explanation. Why do women tend to live longer than men? Why do men have higher cancer risks than women? Research led by Professor Jan Dumanski and Assistant Professor Lars Forsberg, Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology, Uppsala University, suggests that loss […]
