Category Health/Medical

Scientists have discovered how a mutated gene can affect the three-dimensional interactions of genes in the cell, leading to various forms of cancer. Inside the cell, DNA is tightly wrapped around proteins and packed in a complex, 3D structure that we call “chromatin.” Chromatin not only protects our genetic material from damage, but also organizes the entire genome by regulating the expression of genes in three dimensions, unwinding them to be presented to the cell’s gene-expression machinery and then winding them back in.

Inside the 3D chromatin structure there are certain regions called “topologically associating domains” or TADs...

Cardiovascular risk of diets rich in saturated fats found in meats and the benefits of plant-based and dairy alternatives. The type of saturated fats we eat can affect our risk of a heart attack, according to a study published in the International Journal of Cardiology...

Patients undergoing long-term treatment with steroids may suffer from metabolic side effects. Researchers at the Helmholtz Zentrum München and the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich (LMU), partners in the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD), have now pinpointed a mechanism that leads to so-called steroid diabetes. Their findings have been published in Nature Communications.

“Glucocorticoids such as cortisone have been used to treat inflammatory diseases such as asthma or rheumatism for many decades, and they are the most commonly prescribed anti-inflammatory drugs,” explains Prof...

Researchers at LSTM and Imperial College London have designed drugs which could help combat any potential new flu pandemic, by targeting the receptors of the cells by which the virus gains entry to the human body. In a paper published today in the Journal of Immunology the team, led by LSTM’s Professor Richard Pleass, show that by engineering a part of an antibody they can target the viral proteins that allow flu to mutate and become so deadly to humans.

Last year marked the centenary of the 1918 influenza pandemic that claimed nearly 100 million lives worldwide, thus becoming the deadliest disease outbreak in recorded history...