Category Health/Medical

Crohn’s disease bacteria drives arthritis. E. coli bacteria (red), which are abundant in the immunoglobulin-A-coated microbiota of patients with a Crohn’s disease-associated condition called spondyloarthritis, promote systemic inflammation. The blue circular structures depict the nuclei of cells called epithelial cells. All images: Dr. Kenneth Simpson, Cornell University.

Patients with Crohn’s disease, a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that causes abdominal pain and diarrhea, can also experience joint pain. In Crohn’s disease, which affects about 800,000 Americans, the immune system can attack not only the bowels, but the musculoskeletal system as well, leading to spondyloarthritis, a painful condition that affects the spine and joints. Now new research, published Feb...

Stretchable UV curable (SUV) elastomers can be stretched by up to 1100% and are suitable for digital light processing (DLP) based 3D printing technology. DLP printing of these SUV elastomers enables the direct creation of highly deformable complex 3D hollow structures such as balloons, soft actuators, grippers, and Bucky ball electronical switches.

Due to its excellent material properties of elasticity, resilience, and electrical and thermal insulation, elastomers have been used in a myriad of applications. They are especially ideal for fabricating soft robots, flexible electronics and smart biomedical devices which require soft, deformable material properties for safe and smooth interactions with humans externally and internally.

However, to date, the most widely used silicon rubber-based...

Scientists have uncovered key processes in the healthy development of cells which line the human gut, furthering their understanding about the development of cancer.

Scientists have uncovered key processes in the healthy development of cells which line the human gut, furthering their understanding about the development of cancer. A University of East Anglia (UEA) study shows that a protein called ninein is essential for normal tissue development in the gut. The research aimed to unravel some of the poorly-understood mechanisms involved in rearranging the cytoskeleton – in cells that are undergoing a shape change during normal development.

Using ‘mini-guts’ created in the lab, they studied the tubular filaments which are part of the cytoskeleton called microtubules, and their dramatic rearr...

1. Hypoxia-induced HIF1α targets in melanocytes reveal a molecular profile associated with poor melanoma prognosis. Pigment Cell & Melanoma Research, 2017; DOI: 10.1111/pcmr.12579
2. Hypoxia-dependent regulation of HIF-1 activity.

Insights provide possible new targets for personalized treatments. Cancerous tumors are voracious. Once they have consumed all the oxygen and nutrients in the original tumor site, the cancer cells metastasize to find more nourishment. Searching for clues about how the body signals the lack of oxygen in melanoma skin cancer, NIH researchers focused on HIF1alpha (hypoxia inducible factor 1 alpha), a protein that acts as a sensor for oxygen and nutrients in many types of cancer...