Category Health/Medical

Methalobacterkum

Study compares cterial composition in healthy vs. cancerous breast tissue. The Cleveland team has discovered for the first time that healthy breast tissue contains more of the bacterial species Methylobacterium, a finding which could offer a new perspective in the battle against breast cancer. Researchers have long suspected that a “microbiome” exists within breast tissue and plays a role in breast cancer but it has not yet been characterized. The research team has taken the first step toward understanding the composition of the bacteria in breast cancer by uncovering distinct microbial differences in healthy and cancerous breast tissue.

“To my knowledge, this is the first study to examine both breast tissue and distant sites of the body for bacterial differences in breast...

Credit: Albert Einstein College of Medicine
This image depicts the structure of the BAX protein (purple). The activator compound BTSA1 (orange) has bound to the active site of BAX (green), changing the shape of the BAX molecule at several points (shown in yellow, magenta and cyan). BAX, once in its final activated form, can home in on mitochondria and puncture their outer membranes, triggering apoptosis (cell death).

Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine have discovered the first compound that directly makes cancer cells commit suicide while sparing healthy cells. The new treatment approach, described in today’s issue of Cancer Cell, was directed against acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells but may also have potential for attacking other types of cancers.

“We’re hopeful that the t...

Jasmine M. McCammon, Alicia Blaker-Lee, Xiao Chen, Hazel Sive. The 16p11.2 homologs fam57ba and doc2a generate certain brain and body phenotypes. Human Molecular Genetics, 2017; DOI: 10.1093/hmg/ddx255

For the first time, Whitehead Institute scientists have documented a direct link between deletions in two genes – fam57ba and doc2a – in zebrafish and certain brain and body traits, such as seizures, hyperactivity, enlarged head size, and obesity. “Finding the molecular connections between a brain and a body phenotype is indeed really paradigm shifting,” says Whitehead Institute Member Hazel Sive, who is also a professor of biology at MIT...

Slow-wave sleep is controlled by a subset of nucleus accumbens core neurons in mice. Nature Communications, 2017; 8 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-00781-4

As humans, we often defy sleepiness and stay awake when attention is necessary, but also experience an inescapable desire to sleep in boring situations. The brain mechanisms governing the regulation of sleep by cognitive and emotional factors are not well understood. A new paper published in the journal Nature Communications finds that a part of the brain that is associated with motivation and pleasure – the nucleus accumbens – also can produce sleep. The new findings may explain why we have the tendency to fall asleep in the absence of motivating stimuli, i.e., when bored.

Researchers at the University of Tsukuba’s International Institute ...