All posts by : Felistas

Dr. Francis Collins, the famed geneticist who led the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for 12 years and helped guide the U.S. through the COVID pandemic, has stepped down.

A new computational tool allows researchers to understand how the diverse cell types of the human body are made during development, and how diseases progress over time at the cellular level.

In a groundbreaking series of surgeries, doctors at Duke Health have successfully performed the world’s first living mitral valve replacement, saving the lives of three young girls across North Carolina.

A research team has developed an electrode capable of safely encasing nerves without causing damage. The newly developed electrode features soft actuation technology that allows it to transform from a flat two-dimensional shape into a three-dimensional structure. This advance is expected to enable the emergence of various next-generation soft bioelectronic devices, including electroceuticals suitable for peripheral nerve treatment. The team was led by Professor Sohee Kim of the Department of Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering.

Researchers have widely accepted that impulsivity increases the risk of drug addiction, but the evidence to support this belief is mixed. Exploring the relationship between impulsivity and cocaine use in rats, Yihong Yang and colleagues from the National Institute on Drug Abuse found evidence that contradicts the prevailing view that high impulsivity predicts cocaine use.

For many women, period pain is an expected part of life. But for those with endometriosis, the pain can be unbearable—going beyond cramps and disrupting daily activities. With approximately one in 10 women of reproductive age affected, it’s crucial to recognize the symptoms, seek early diagnosis and explore treatment options that can provide relief.

Approximately one in five pregnant and postpartum individuals experience depression and anxiety, yet less than 10% receive proper treatment. To address this problem, a team of interdisciplinary researchers from Canada and the United States investigated if talk therapy can be effectively delivered by non-mental health specialists and telemedicine to increase access.

Advances in generative artificial intelligence and machine learning, trained on large-scale datasets across multiple institutions, have the potential to revolutionize medicine. However, data is hard to gather. It is siloed in individual hospitals, medical practices, and clinics around the world. Privacy risks stemming from disclosing medical data are also a serious concern, so existing data-sharing regulations have largely limited the scope of data collaborations for medical research.

Despite advances in cancer treatment in recent years, five-year survival rates for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) remain low at just 30% on average, according to the National Cancer Institute. Factors in the development of AML are diverse with many different drivers. A longtime goal for scientists in this field is finding a single drug that can treat all types of AML. A team led by The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) scientists are closer than ever to this goal with their discovery of how a certain protein in the cell nucleus, paraspeckle component 1 (PSPC1), contributes to AML progression.

E-cigarette use, including vaping, is often seen as a safer and trendier alternative to traditional tobacco products. However, a new study from researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center published in Scientific Reports suggests an elevation of carcinogenic cellular signaling pathways in exclusive e-cigarette users when compared to non-users.