Category Health/Medical

We humans lose mental acuity, an unfortunate side effect of aging. And for individuals with neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, the loss of cognitive function often accompanied by mood disorders such as anxiety is a harrowing experience. One way to push back against cognitive decline and anxiety would be to spur the creation of new neurons. For the first time, University of North Carolina School of Medicine scientists have targeted a specific kind of neuron in mice to increase the production of neural stem cells and spur on the creation of new adult neurons to affect behavior.

Targeting these cells, as reported in the journal Nature Neuroscience, modulated memory retrieval and altered anxiety-like behaviors in mice...

Ovarian cancer kills 14,000 women in the United States every year...

Research from the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center could provide a new approach to treating an aggressive form of breast cancer.

A study led by Duxin Sun, Ph.D., found that targeting the immune microenvironment in lymph nodes and tumors simultaneously led to long-term tumor remission in mice models of metastatic triple negative breast cancer. Further, using nanoparticles to deliver these immune-altering drugs increases treatment efficacy. These results appear in Science Translational Medicine.

Immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy has been long approved as standard treatment option for triple negative breast cancer but only shows a limited response in patients...

The alterations are associated with poor outcomes and disease progression. Alterations in metabolic processes are a hallmark of cancer and can lead to a tumor environment that is acidic. As a result, cancer cells must adapt to survive in this inhospitable environment. In a new study published in the journal Cell Reports, Moffitt Cancer Center researchers show that cancer cells in an acidic environment undergo lipid synthesis and accumulation. The team identified the key signaling molecules responsible for these changes and discovered that these alterations are associated with poor outcomes and disease progression among breast cancer patients.

Cancer cells undergo numerous changes that promote cell survival and continued growth...