Category Biology/Biotechnology

High expression of PHLDB3 is found in multiple cancers and mutually exclusive to TP53 mutations in some cancers.

Tulane University researchers have discovered that the protein PHLDB3, thought to be a potential tumor suppressor, actually allows cancer cells to thrive in pancreatic, prostate, colon, breast, lung, and other common cancers. The discovery could explain how cancer is able to overcome p53 – a key tumor-suppressing protein. The findings, recently published in Nature Communications, could eventually lead to targeted diagnostic tests and treatments of certain types of cancer.

“Now that we’ve identified the molecule, we could utilize it as an anti-cancer target,” said Dr. Hua Lu, the Reynolds and Ryan Families Chair in Translation Cancer at Tulane...

Bioprinter prototype. Credit: Image courtesy of Universidad Carlos III de Madrid – Oficina de Información Científica

Scientists from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), CIEMAT Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, with the firm BioDan Group, have a prototype for a 3D bioprinter that can create functional human skin. This skin is adequate for transplanting to patients or for use in research or the testing of cosmetic, chemical, and pharmaceutical products.

This new human skin is one of the first living human organs created using bioprinting to be introduced to the marketplace...

The “Mama-Ope” (Mother’s Hope) kit, invented by Ugandan engineers, is a biomedical smart jacket and a mobile phone app that diagnoses pneumonia faster than a doctor (AFP Photo/ISAAC KASAMANI)

A team of Ugandan engineers has invented a “smart jacket” that diagnoses pneumonia faster than a doctor, offering hope against a disease which kills more children worldwide than any other. The idea came to Olivia Koburongo, 26, after her grandmother fell ill, and was moved from hospital to hospital before being properly diagnosed with pneumonia. “It was now too late to save her,” said Koburongo. “It was too hard to keep track of her vitals, of how she’s doing, and that is how I thought of a way to automate the whole process and keep track of her health.”

Koburongo took her idea to fellow telecommunic...

Researchers find BCX—red pigment abundant in sweet red peppers, paprika, winter and butternut squash, oranges, and tangerines, among other foods—appears to counteract nicotine’s ability to accelerate the growth of lung tumors. Photo: Ingimage

Xiang-Dong Wang, a cancer researcher at Tufts, has spent a long time trying to figure out why carotenoids, the main pigments providing colors that range from yellow and pink to deep orange and red in most fruits and vegetables, seem to keep chronic diseases at bay. When a 2004 study by other researchers showed that eating foods containing beta-cryptoxanthin (BCX)—a red pigment abundant in sweet red peppers, paprika, winter and butternut squash, oranges...