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Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have identified DNA variants in mothers and fetuses that appear to increase the risk for preterm labor and delivery. The DNA variants were in genes involved in the regulation of inflammation and of the extracellular matrix, the mesh-like material that holds cells within tissues.

CHICAGO, FEB. 4, 2010 — New evidence that genetics play a significant role in some premature births may help explain why a woman can do everything right and still give birth too soon.

BENEFITS OF ICS FOR COPD MAY BE OVERSTATED

SAN ANTONIO, Texas, U.S.A. (Feb. 4, 2010) — A novel finding, described today (Feb. 4) on the Science Express Web site by teams from the National Cancer Institute, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and the University of Toronto, offers a clue as to how genes can have what you might call multiple personalities.

Children with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) may one day be able to have an injection or use a throat spray instead of getting their tonsils removed to cure their snoring, according to a new study from the University of Chicago, which found that a specific gene product may be responsible for the proliferation of adenotonsillar tissue that can cause pediatric OSA.

Philadelphia, February 4, 2010- Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder affect tens of millions of individuals around the world. These disorders have a typical onset in the early twenties and in most cases have a chronic or recurring course. Neither disorder has an objective biological marker than can be used to make diagnoses or to guide treatment.

The drug pazopanib (Votrient) slowed the progression of advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC), a form of kidney cancer, in patients by 54% percent, according to a new study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have developed a simple urine test to rapidly predict and diagnose preeclampsia, a common, but serious hypertensive complication of pregnancy.

UCSF researchers have identified an elusive molecular regulator that controls the ability of human sperm to reach and fertilize the egg, a finding that has implications on both treating male infertility and preventing pregnancy.

The involvement of healthy volunteers (HV) in clinical and preclinical research, especially in the gastroenterology, has grown dramatically over the past few years. However, many issues of ethical, methodological or even legal concerns have not been systematically studied.

Colonoscopy is operator-dependent and substantial numbers of pre-cancerous polyps are missed during colonoscopy. Colonoscopies are often poorly documented, with only a few still photographs taken of anatomic landmarks and abnormal findings. Video recording is rarely used in colonoscopy except for teaching purposes; therefore, the potential impact of systematic video recording on the quality of colonoscopy is unknown.

Conventional hepatectomy is an effective way to treat hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, it is invasive and stressful. Laparoscopic surgery, a kind of minimally invasive surgery, has recently gained considerable advances. The use of laparoscopy in hepatectomy, while technically demanding, reduces surgical invasiveness and stressfulness but still achieves complete resection with adequate margins.

Scientists at Emory University School of Medicine have discovered unexpected properties for a precursor to melatonin, the hormone that regulates sleep cycles.

An approach to decision making based on soft metrics could allow problems to be solved where no definitive "yes-no" answer is possible in fields as diverse as healthcare, defense, economics, engineering, public utilities and science. Writing in the International Journal of Intelligent Defence Support Systems Mihaela Quirk of Los Alamos National Laboratory explains how.

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have become the first in the world to synthesize the entire protein that is responsible for life-threatening malaria in pregnant women and their unborn children. The protein known as VAR2CSA enables malaria parasites to accumulate in the placenta and can therefore potentially be used as the main component in a vaccine to trigger antibodies that protect pregnant women against malaria. The research team is now planning to test the efficacy of the protein-based vaccine on humans. The hope is that within 10 years all African girls could be vaccinated against maternal malaria, thereby preventing more than 200,000 deaths a year.