Category Health/Medical

This is a comparison of wounds healing with and without hair follicles. Credit: Penn Medicine

Breaking ground on method to transform cells. Doctors have found a way to manipulate wounds to heal as regenerated skin rather than scar tissue. The method involves transforming the most common type of cells found in wounds into fat cells – something that was previously thought to be impossible in humans. Researchers began this work at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, which led to a large-scale, multi-year study in connection with the Plikus Laboratory for Developmental and Regenerative Biology at the University of California, Irvine.

Fat cells, ie adipocytes are normally found in the skin, but they’re lost when wounds heal as scars...

Melanoma metastases

Michigan State University researchers have discovered that a chemical compound, and potential new drug, reduces the spread of melanoma cells by up to 90%. The human-made, small-molecule drug compound goes after a gene’s ability to produce RNA molecules and certain proteins in melanoma tumors. This gene activity, or transcription process, causes the disease to spread but the compound can shut it down. Up until now, few other compounds of this kind have been able to accomplish this.

“It’s been a challenge developing small-molecule drugs that can block this gene activity that works as a signaling mechanism known to be important in melanoma progression,” said Richard Neubig, a pharmacology professor...

Collage of products containing zinc. Credit: © Africa Studio / Fotolia

Research results present a new strategy for measuring the impact of zinc on health. The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, was led by CHORI Senior Scientist Janet King, PhD. King and her team are the first to show that a modest increase in dietary zinc reduces oxidative stress and damage to DNA. Zinc is ubiquitous in our body and facilitates many functions that are essential for preserving life. It plays a vital role in maintaining optimal childhood growth, and in ensuring a healthy immune system. Zinc also helps limit inflammation and oxidative stress in our body, which are associated with the onset of chronic cardiovascular diseases and cancers.

Around much of the world, many households e...

Credit: Jian Yang, Yixue Su Artist’s conception of nanoparticle-carrying immune cells that target tumors and release drug-loaded nanoparticles for cancer treatment.

Penn State engineers have conjugating biodegradable polymer nanoparticles encapsulated with chosen cancer-fighting drugs into immune cells to create a smart, targeted system to attack cancers of specific types. “The traditional way to deliver drugs to tumors is to put the drug inside some type of nanoparticle and inject those particles into the bloodstream,” said Jian Yang, professor of biomedical engineering, Penn State. “Because the particles are so small, if they happen to reach the tumor site they have a chance of penetrating through the blood vessel wall because the vasculature of tumors is usually leaky.”

The odds of in...