Research News

Two linked papers in The BMJ this week shed new light on the relation of alcohol and diet with breast cancer and heart disease.The first study reports that high fruit consumption during adolescence may be associated with lower breast cancer risk, while the second study finds that increasing alcohol intake in later life is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer.

A new study in which researchers rapidly screened more than 11,000 bioactive molecules for activity against an antibiotic-resistant strain of Klebsiella pneumoniae bacteria identified multiple compounds with potent antimicrobial activity. These active compounds included two existing drugs, azidothymidine, an antiviral used to treat HIV infection, and spectinomycin, an antibacterial agent used to treat gonorrhea, as reported in ASSAY and Drug Development Technologies, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the ASSAY and Drug Development Technologies website until June 11, 2016.

Zika virus infects and crosses the placentas of pregnant mice and causes severe damage or death in fetal mice, report scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health. Investigators from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed two mouse models of Zika infection in pregnancy that will enable rapid testing of experimental Zika drugs to prevent congenital abnormalities, and may aid in better understanding how the virus affects pregnant women.

Two patients with melanoma that had spread to the liver survived for at least 8.5 and 12 years after resection of the hepatic tumor and treatment with patient-specific immunotherapeutic vaccines. The vaccines, designed to activate the immune system against the tumor, were derived from the patients' own dendritic cells loaded with proteins isolated from their tumors, as described in an article published in Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free for download on the Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals website until June 10, 2016.

Signaling a potential new approach to treating diabetes, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Harvard University have produced insulin-secreting cells from stem cells derived from patients with type 1 diabetes.

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For years, physicians have told patients that HDL (high-density lipoprotein cholesterol) helps protect them from cardiovascular disease (CVD). And the higher the number, the more the protection. HDL, often considered an independent predictor of heart disease, has been dubbed the "good" cholesterol, thanks to its protective effects. But a new study shows for the first time that HDL's protection depends on the levels of two other blood fats or lipids associated with heart disease. If these fats are not within normal ranges, even a high HDL may not be protective.

In a study of nearly 650 people with the eye disease age-related macular degeneration (AMD), half still had vision 20/40 or better, typically good enough to drive or to read standard print, after five years of treatment with anti-VEGF drugs that are injected into the eye. The authors of the study, funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI) at the National Institutes of Health, say those outcomes would have been unimaginable about 10 years ago, prior to the drugs’ availability.

The constant emergence of viral outbreaks has become a permanent threat to human health. Last year, Zika virus infected thousands of people in the Americas. It is also associated to several cases of neurological disorders and has raised worldwide public health alerts. Now due to the urgency, researchers are detailing the characteristics of the virus to find solutions.

Probiotic supplements protected female mice from the loss of bone density that occurs after having their ovaries removed, researchers at Emory University School of Medicine and Georgia State University have shown.The results were published Monday, April 25 in Journal of Clinical Investigation.