Category Health/Medical

A new method for analysing the structure of skin using a type of radiation known as T-rays could help improve the diagnosis and treatment of skin conditions such as eczema, psoriasis and skin cancer.

Scientists from the University of Warwick and The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) have shown that using a method that involves analysing T-rays fired from several different angles, they can build a more detailed picture of the structure of an area of skin and how hydrated it is than current methods allow.

Their method is reported in Advanced Photonics Research and could provide a new tool for scientists and clinicians for characterising the properties of skin in...

Chemical compounds in foods or beverages like green tea, muscadine grapes and dark chocolate can bind to and block the function of a particular enzyme, or protease, in the SARS-CoV-2 virus, according to a new study by plant biologists at North Carolina State University.

Proteases are important to the health and viability of cells and viruses, says De-Yu Xie, professor of plant and microbial biology at NC State and the corresponding author of the study. If proteases are inhibited, cells cannot perform many important functions — like replication, for example.

“One of our lab’s focuses is to find nutraceuticals in food or medicinal plants tha...

The labyrinth of jumbled blood vessels in the tumor microenvironment remains one of the toughest blockades for cellular therapies to penetrate and treat solid tumors. Now, in a new study published online today in Nature Cancer, Penn Medicine researchers found that combining chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy with a PAK4 inhibitor drug allowed the engineered cells to punch their way through and attack the tumor, leading to significantly enhanced survival in mice.

The researchers discovered in laboratory experiments that vascularization in solid tumors is driven by the genetic reprogramming of tumor endothelial cells—which line the walls of blood vessels—caused by an enzyme known as PAK4...

Among the new findings, the research team found that chronic oxidative stress during spaceflight contributed to the telomere elongation they observed. They also found that astronauts had shorter telomeres after spaceflight than they did before.

The historic NASA Twins Study investigated identical twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly and provided new information on the health effects of spending time in space.

Colorado State University Professor Susan Bailey was one of more than 80 scientists across 12 universities who conducted research on the textbook experiment; M...