Category Biology/Biotechnology

SCUBE3 identified as possible therapeutic treatment for androgenetic alopecia. University of California, Irvine-led researchers have discovered that a signaling molecule called SCUBE3 potently stimulates hair growth and may offer a therapeutic treatment for androgenetic alopecia, a common form of hair loss in both women and men.

The study, published online today in Developmental Cell, determined the precise mechanism by which the dermal papilla cells — speciali...

A class of viruses known to cause severe diarrheal diseases – including the one famous for widespread outbreaks on cruise ships – can grow in the salivary glands of mice and spread through their saliva, scientists at the National Institutes of Health have discovered. The findings show that a new route of transmission exists for these common viruses, which afflict billions of people each year worldwide and can be deadly.

The transmission of these so-called enteric viruses through saliva suggests that coughing, talking, sneezing, sharing food and utensils, and even kissing all have the potential for spreading the viruses. The new findings still need to be confirmed in human studies.

The findings, which appear in the journal Nature, could lead to better ways to prevent, diagnos...

The skin’s top layer contains a diverse set of hundreds of lipid molecules called ceramides with varying chain lengths that play a vital role in its barrier function.

Ceramides are a type of lipid that are found in abundance in the top layer of the skin, called the stratum corneum...

Many who experience what is now called “long COVID” report feeling brain fog, breathless, fatigued and limited in doing everyday things, often lasting weeks and months post-infection. Using functional MRI with inhaled xenon gas, researchers have now identified for the first time that these debilitating symptoms are related to microscopic abnormalities that affect how oxygen is exchanged from the lungs to the red blood cells.

The LIVECOVIDFREE study, based at five centers across Ontario, and led by Western Universi...