Category Health/Medical

Protein aggregation inhibitor shows lower levels of cell death and paralysis in mice with acute strokes.

Stroke kills millions, but Osaka researchers have unveiled GAI-17, a drug that halts toxic GAPDH clumping, slashes brain damage and paralysis in mice—even when given six hours post-stroke—and shows no major side effects, hinting at a single therapy that could also tackle Alzheimer’s and other tough neurological disorders.

Stroke is said to be the se...

An experimental mRNA vaccine has boosted the tumor-fighting effects of immunotherapy in a mouse-model study, bringing researchers one step closer to their goal of developing a universal vaccine to “wake up” the immune system against cancer.

Published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, the University of Florida study showed that like a one-two punch, pairing the test vaccine with common anticancer drugs called immune checkpoint inhibitors triggered a strong antitumor response.

A surprising element, researchers said, was that they achieved the promising results not by attacking a specific target protein expressed in the tumor, but by simply revving up the immune system—spurring it to respond as if fighting a virus...

With the help of artificial intelligence (AI), an inexpensive test found in many doctors’ offices may soon be used to screen for hidden heart disease.

Structural heart disease, including valve disease, congenital heart disease, and other issues that impair heart function, affects millions of people worldwide. Yet in the absence of a routine, affordable screening test, many structural heart problems go undetected until significant function has been lost.

“We have colonoscopies, we have mammograms, but we have no equivalents for most forms of heart disease,” says Pierre Elias, assistant professor of medicine and biomedical informatics at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and medical director for artificial intelligence at NewYork-Presbyterian.

Elias...

Long-term musical training may mitigate the age-related decline in speech perception by enhancing cognitive reserve, according to a study published in PLOS Biology by Claude Alain from the Baycrest Academy for Research and Education, Canada, and Yi Du from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Normal aging is typically associated with declines in sensory and cognitive functions...