Category Health/Medical

A compound in avocados may ultimately offer a route to better leukemia treatment, says a new University of Guelph study.

The compound targets an enzyme that scientists have identified for the first time as being critical to cancer cell growth, said Dr. Paul Spagnuolo, Department of Food Science.

Published recently in the journal Blood, the study focused on acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which is the most devastating form of leukemia. Most cases occur in people over age 65, and fewer than 10 per cent of patients survive five years after diagnosis.

Leukemia cells have higher amounts of an enzyme called VLCAD involved in their metabolism, said Spagnuolo.

“The cell relies on that pathway to survive,” he said, explaining that the compound is a likely candidate ...

Difficult-to-treat, chronic wounds in preclinical models healed with normal scar-free skin after treatment with an acellular product discovered at Mayo Clinic. Derived from platelets, the purified exosomal product, known as PEP, was used to deliver healing messages into cells of preclinical animal models of ischemic wounds. The Mayo Clinic research team documented restoration of skin integrity, hair follicles, sweat glands, skin oils and normal hydration.

Ischemic wounds occur when arteries are clogged or blocked, preventing important nutrients and oxygen from reaching the skin to drive repair. This groundbreaking study titled, “TGF-β Donor Exosome Accelerates Ischemic Wound Healing,” is published in Theranostics.

“This paper documents that PEP, an off-the-shelf, room-temperatu...

Goethe University researchers investigate oxidative stress in mice. Originally, oxygen radicals — reactive oxygen species, or ROS for short — were considered to be exclusively harmful in the body. They are produced, for example, by smoking or UV radiation. Because of their high reactivity, they can damage many important molecules in cells, including the hereditary molecule DNA. As a result, there is a risk of inflammatory reactions and the degeneration of affected cells into cancer cells.

Because of their damaging effect, however, ROS are also deliberately produced by the body, for example by immune or lung epithelial cells, which destroy invading ...

Fixing traumatic injuries to the skin and bones of the face and skull is difficult because of the many layers of different types of tissues involved, but now, researchers have repaired such defects in a rat model using bioprinting during surgery, and their work may lead to faster and better methods of healing skin and bones.

“This work is clinically significant,” said Ibrahim T. Ozbolat, Hartz Family Career Development Associate Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics, Biomedical Engineering and Neurosurgery, Penn State...