Category Biology/Biotechnology

The amount of harmful nerve connections is significantly lower (far right, arrows) when treating with bumetanide after a prolonged convulsive seizure. Credit: Nazin Kourdougli

Prolonged epileptic seizures may cause serious problems that will continue for the rest of a patient’s life. As a result of a seizure, neural connections of the brain may be rewired in an incorrect way. This may result in seizures that are difficult to control with medication. Mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are not entirely known, which makes current therapies ineffective in some patients...

Obstructive sleep apnea is caused by a narrowing of the airway that cuts off breathing, and people who are obese are at higher risk for the disorder. MIT researchers have discovered that a dietary supplement called yohimbine reverses the root cause of obstructive sleep apnea in an animal model. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Obstructive sleep apnea, which causes people to briefly stop breathing while asleep, affects an estimated 5% of the population, not including the many more who don’t even realize they suffer from the disorder. MIT researchers have discovered that a dietary supplement, yohimbine reverses the root cause of OSA in an animal model.

Yohimbine, a chemical derived from the bark of the African yohimbe tree, has a long history of use by humans as an aphrodisiac, ...

Anti-tumor Immunity Elicited by pSynConWT1-S (A) Mice were challenged with 106 mWT1-C1498 tumor cells injected subcutaneously and were vaccinated weekly starting 3 days post-tumor implant. Tumor measurements are reported in terms of tumor volume only for surviving mice until day 28. (B) Survival data from the tumor therapeutic challenge in (A). Vaccination with pSynConWT1-S extended survival in tumor-bearing mice. (C) Representative image of tumor size in naive or pSynConWT1-S vaccinated groups at day 14 post-mWT1-C1498 implantation. Error bars represent the average ± SEM.

Scientists at The Wistar Institute and Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc...

This visual abstract depicts the findings of Cheng et al., who show a short-term diet that mimics periodic fasting modulates b-cell number and promotes insulin secretion and glucose homeostasis with implications for both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Credit: Cheng et al./Cell 2017

Periodic cycles of fasting reprogram pancreatic cells and restore insulin production. The fasting-like diet promotes the growth of new insulin-producing pancreatic cells that reduce symptoms of type 1 and type 2 diabetes in mice, according to the study on mice and human cells led by Valter Longo, director of the Longevity Institute at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.

“Cycles of a fasting-mimicking diet and a normal diet essentially reprogrammed non-insulin-producing cells into insulin-producing cells,” ...