Utah Team Invents Way to Image Brains of Mice Using a Small Needle
A University of Utah team discovered a method for turning a small, $40 needle into a 3-D microscope capable of taking images up to 70 times smaller than the width of a human hair. This new method not only produces high-quality images comparable to expensive microscopes, but may be implanted into the brains of living mice for imaging at the cellular level. (more…)
UMD-led study is first to link racism-related factors and cellular age
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – A new University of Maryland-led study reveals that racism may impact aging at the cellular level. Researchers found signs of accelerated aging in African American men who reported high levels of racial discrimination and who had internalized anti-Black attitudes. Findings from the study, which is the first to link racism-related factors and biological aging, are published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Racial disparities in health are well-documented, with African Americans having shorter life expectancy, and a greater likelihood of suffering from aging-related illnesses at younger ages compared to whites. Accelerated aging at the biological level may be one mechanism linking racism and disease risk. (more…)
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Blocking a protein in the heart that is produced under stressful conditions could be a strategy to prevent cardiac damage that results from chemotherapy, a new study suggests.
Previous research has suggested that up to a quarter of patients who receive the common chemotherapy drug doxorubicin are at risk of developing heart failure later in life. Exactly how that heart damage is done remains unclear.
In this study, scientists identified a protein called heat shock factor-1 (HSF-1) as a likely source of chemotherapy-related heart damage in mice and cell cultures. Heat shock factor-1 is known to be induced by stress – in this case, the chemotherapy treatment itself. (more…)
*Commercial production will allow scientists, academia opportunity for use in cancer studies*
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Early detection of melanoma, the most aggressive skin cancer, is critical because melanoma will spread rapidly throughout the body. Now, University of Missouri researchers are one step closer to melanoma cancer detection at the cellular level, long before tumors have a chance to form. Commercial production of a device that measures melanoma using photoacoustics, or laser-induced ultrasound, will soon be available to scientists and academia for cancer studies. The commercial device also will be tested in clinical trials to provide the data required to obtain U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for early diagnosis of metastatic melanoma and other cancers. (more…)
