Huntington’s Disease: Neural traffic could help understand the disease

Huntington’s disease is a genetic neurodegenerative disorder caused by mutations in the protein huntingtin and characterized by involuntary dance-like movements, severe behavioral changes and cognitive impairment. That neuronal traffic is impaired in this disease has been very well known for several years. But that this deranged trafficking could be ameliorated […]

Cancer discovery could revive failed treatments for solid tumors

New research from the UVA Cancer Center could rescue once-promising immunotherapies for treating solid cancer tumors, such as ovarian, colon and triple-negative breast cancer, that ultimately failed in human clinical trials. The research from UVA’s Jogender Tushir-Singh explains why antibody approaches effectively killed cancer tumors in lab tests, but proved […]

Steroid hormone could reduce risk of preterm birth for high-risk single baby pregnancies

Taking progestogens—steroid hormones—during pregnancy could reduce the risk of preterm birth in high-risk single baby pregnancies, research has shown. Although these compounds have been in use for some time, results of individual clinical trials investigating their effectiveness in preventing preterm birth have been conflicting, and so further evaluation of the […]

Targeting mechanosensitive protein could treat pulmonary fibrosis, study suggests

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have identified a new molecular target that could potentially treat the deadly, aging-related lung disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). The study, which will be published March 10 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), suggests that targeting a protein called MDM4 could prevent […]

Why telling stories could be a more powerful way of convincing some people to take a COVID vaccine than just the facts

Scientists don’t know exactly what percentage of the population will need to get a COVID vaccine to achieve herd immunity. Some diseases, such as whooping cough, need very high rates of vaccination between 90-95%. The rise of new, more infectious coronavirus variants might mean even more people may need to […]

Universal access to preventive drugs could reduce HIV incidence in sub-Saharan Africa

Universal HIV testing with linkage to treatment and prevention may be a promising approach to accelerate reductions in new infections in generalized epidemic settings, according to a study published February 9th, 2021 in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine by Catherine Koss of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues. […]

Survey taken after France’s first COVID-19 wave indicates almost one-third of working-age people could reject a vaccine

Nearly one in three working-age adults in France (29%) surveyed in July 2020—when lockdown restrictions had been eased—were outright opposed to being vaccinated against the virus, according to new research published in The Lancet Public Health journal. Researchers found that more than two-thirds of people (71%) could accept a vaccine […]