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    Category Health/Medical

    Blood Plasma Protein Fibrinogen Interacts Directly with Nerve Cells to Cause Brain Inflammation

    November 10, 2021, Categories  Biology/Biotechnology, Health/Medical

    Interactions of blood plasma protein fibrinogen with its receptors, cellular prion protein (above) and intercellular adhesion molecule (below), on the surface of neurons are shown with red dots using a method called proximity ligation assay.  The presence of red dots indicates interaction of the target protein with its receptor. Neuronal nuclei are shown in blue.  — Microscopic images courtesy of Lominadze Laboratory, USF Health

    Neuroinflammatory diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease and traumatic brain injury, have been linked to deposits of a tough protein known as fibrin, derived from the blood clotting factor fibrinogen. These mesh-like fibrin deposits occur outside blood vessels in the brain, contributing to the death of neurons that eventually leads to impaired memory.

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    New Strategy against Treatment-Resistant Prostate Cancer identified

    November 9, 2021, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    A study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has identified an RNA molecule that suppresses prostate tumors. According to the research — conducted in mice implanted with human prostate tumor samples — restoring this so-called long noncoding RNA could be a new strategy to treat prostate cancer that has developed resistance to hormonal therapies. Pictured are prostate cancer cells. The androgen receptor is shown in dark red. Cell nuclei are outlined in blue. MAHAJAN LAB

    A new study has identified an RNA molecule that suppresses prostate tumors. The scientists found that prostate cancers develop ways to shut down this RNA molecule to allow themselves to grow...

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    Gene Therapy boosts Parkinson’s Disease Drug Benefits

    November 5, 2021, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    A new gene therapy targeting the small brain region where dopamine neurons reside, the substantia nigra, substantially boosts the benefits of the drug levodopa in Parkinson’s. The therapy restored the ability of these neurons to convert levodopa to dopamine. Scientists also showed how damage to the powerplants inside dopamine-releasing neurons triggers Parkinson’s. The findings may help identify humans in the earliest stages of Parkinson’s disease, develop therapies to slow disease progression and treat late-stage disease.

    In late-stage Parkinson’s disease, the drug levodopa becomes less effective in treating symptoms because of the inexorable loss of dopamine-releasing neurons...

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    Combining two ‘Old Therapies’ packs a Powerful Punch against Pediatric Brain Tumors

    November 4, 2021, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    On the left is a magnetic resonance image of a child’s medulloblastoma brain tumor, and on the right, a photomicrograph of medulloblastoma cells. The circle shows a Homer Wright rosette, a circular cluster of tumor cells characteristic of the disease. Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers have combined two old therapies — copper and disulfiram — to destroy this pediatric cancer. Credit: Graphic created by M.E. Newman, Johns Hopkins Medicine, using public domain images. MRI scan courtesy of the National Cancer Institute and photomicrograph courtesy of Jensflorian via Wikimedia Commons.

    Copper has been clinically improving the lives of people since about 1500 BCE, when an Egyptian physician first recorded its use as a treatment for inflammation...

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