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NEWS:
Can Ovarian Cancer Be Diagnosed Earlier?
Fewer than half of ovarian cancer patients survive until five years after diagnosis. According to the American Cancer Society, this is because only about one-fifth of ovarian cancer cases are detected early, when the chances of successful treatment and recovery are highest.
“If we could change this reality by detecting (ovarian cancer) at a curable stage, we could save many lives,” said Keren Levanon, a physician-researcher at Chaim Sheba Medical Center in Israel.
In the journal Molecular & Cellular Proteomics, researchers led by Levanon and Tamar Geiger of Tel Aviv University report a new test for ovarian cancer that outperforms previous tests. They hope it will help screen women who are genetically predisposed to the disease.
The researchers used proteomics to search for signatures of cancer in uterine fluid.
They compared samples from women with ovarian cancer having surgery in
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Inactive Ingredients In Pills And Capsules May Cause Allergic, Adverse Reactions
A new study led by a team of investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts Institute of Technology has found that the vast majority of the most frequently prescribed medications in the U.S. contain at least one ingredient capable of causing an adverse reaction. Known as inactive ingredients, these components are added to improve the taste, shelf-life, absorption and other characteristics of a pill, but the authors found that more than 90 percent of all oral medications tested contained at least one ingredient that can cause allergic or gastrointestinal symptoms in sensitive individuals. Such ingredients include lactose, peanut oil, gluten and chemical dyes. The team's findings are published online in Science Translational Medicine.
"When you're a clinician, the last thing you want to do is prescribe a medication that could cause an adverse reaction or allergic reacti
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Engineering Treatments For The Opioid Epidemic
The U.S. is reeling from a public health crisis driven by the misuse of prescription and illicit opioids with nearly 12 million people abusing the drugs annually. The Midwest saw opioid overdoses increase 70% from July 2016 to September 2017, and every 15 minutes a baby is born suffering from opioid withdrawal as a result of maternal opioid abuse.
A biomedical engineer at Washington University in St. Louis is developing a therapeutic option that would prevent the opiates from crossing the blood-brain barrier, preventing the high abusers seek.
Jai Rudra, assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering, is developing nanovaccines to combat opioid misuse with a two-year, $373,068 grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) through its Cutting-Edge Basic Science Research award program.
“Research shows that an a
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SPIT Lab Leading The Effort To Analyze Hair, Expand Research On Puberty
Puberty is something we all go through and yet there is limited science to explain what is happening inside our bodies during this transition, and how it affects our physical and mental health.
The research that does exist focuses primarily on girls and often ignores the changes for boys, African Americans and LGBTQ youth, said Elizabeth “Birdie” Shirtcliff, an associate professor of human development and family studies at Iowa State University. She is part of teams of researchers working to expand our understanding of puberty.
“Puberty is a normal process, but how you go through puberty can really set your life off on a different trajectory,” Shirtcliff said. “There are risks for early development including anxiety, depression, social problems and physical health problems, such as cancer.”
For a special section in the Journal of Research on Adolescence, Shirtcliff and her co-author