Category Health/Medical

The small molecule hinokitiol transports iron across cell membranes where transport proteins are missing. Credit: Julie McMahon and Liz Ahlberg Touchstone, University of Illinois

“If you’re sick because you have too much protein function, in many cases we can do something about it. But if you’re sick because you’re missing a protein that does an essential function, we struggle to do anything other than treat the symptoms. It’s a huge unmet medical need,” said Burke, who also is a medical doctor. Burke’s team found that a small molecule called hinokitiol, derived from a species of cypress tree found in Japan, can transport iron across cell membranes that are missing transport proteins.

In a healthy system, transport proteins move iron across cell membranes to uptake iron from the gut or mak...

MRI of a patient with (cerebral cavernous malformation) CCM disease. Credit: Issam Awad, University of Chicago

Bacteria in the gut microbiome drive the formation of cerebral cavernous malformations (CCMs), clusters of dilated, thin-walled blood vessels in the brain that can cause stroke and seizures, according to new research published this week in Nature by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Altering the microbiome in CCM patients may be an effective therapy for this cerebrovascular disease. CCM disease, which occurs in about 1 in 100 to 200 people, can present in 2 forms. One is sporadic, accounting for 80% of cases, and is most frequent in older individuals. The remaining 20% are familial, inherited cases...

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have decreased physical fitness because of a decrease in the way oxygen moves through the body, according to a Kansas State University kinesiology study.

Astronauts aboard ISS have decreased physical fitness because of a decrease in the way oxygen moves through the body, according to a Kansas State University kinesiology study. Carl Ade, assistant professor of exercise physiology, and collaborators partnered with the Johnson Space Center to find that astronauts’ exercise capacity decreases between 30 and 50% in long-duration spaceflight because the heart and small blood vessels are not as effective at transporting oxygen to the working muscle.

“It is a dramatic decrease,” Ade said...