Researchers Create Model Of A Mammal Lung In 3D

Amidst the extraordinarily dense network of pathways in a mammal lung is a common destination. There, any road leads to a cul-de-sac of sorts called the pulmonary acinus. This place looks like a bunch of grapes attached to a stem (acinus means "berry" in Latin). Scientists have struggled to understand more specifically what happens in this microscopic, labyrinthine intersection of alleys and dead ends. To find out, a research team led by the University of Iowa created the most detailed, three-dimensional rendering of the pulmonary acinus...
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New Handheld Imaging Tool, A 3-D Medical Scanner For Primary Care Diagnosis

In the operating room, surgeons can see inside the human body in real time using advanced imaging techniques, but primary care physicians, the people who are on the front lines of diagnosing illnesses, haven't commonly had access to the same technology - until now...
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Population-Based Breast Cancer Screening Improved By Digital Mammography

New research from the Netherlands shows that the switch from screen film mammography (SFM) to digital mammography (DM) in large, population-based breast cancer screening programs improves the detection of life-threatening cancer without significantly increasing detection of clinically insignificant disease. Results of the study are published online in the journal Radiology...
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Epigenetic Changes Identified That Occur In Adult Stem Cells To Generate Different Tissues Of The Human Body

The team led by Manel Esteller, director of the Cancer Epigenetics and Biology Program in the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), Professor of Genetics at the University of Barcelona and ICREA researcher, has identified epigenetic changes that occur in adult stem cells to generate different body tissues. The finding is published this week in The American Journal of Pathology. The genome of every single cell in the human body is the same, regardless of their appearance and function...
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50-Hour Whole Genome Test Could Reduce Deaths In Critically Ill Babies

Many babies requiring critical care have genetic diseases that can progress rapidly, and the sooner doctors can diagnose them, the sooner the infants get the treatment they need, which can often be life-saving. Currently it takes weeks to test just one gene, but US researchers reporting in Science Translational Medicine this week describe how they have developed a prototype whole genome sequencing test that only takes 50 hours from blood sample in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) to doctors seeing the results...
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In Gene Expression, Length Matters

Gene ends communicate Human genomes harbour thousands of genes, each of which gives rise to proteins when it is active. But which inherent features of a gene determine its activity? Postdoctoral Scholar Pia Kjolhede Andersen and Senior Researcher Soren Lykke-Andersen from the Danish National Research Foundation's Centre for mRNP Biogenesis and Metabolism have now found that the distance between the gene start, termed the 'promoter', and the gene end, the 'terminator', is crucial for the activity of a protein-coding gene...
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Tenth Birthday Of Life-saving TAVI Heart Implant - UK Lags Behind Europe In Patient Use

Over the span of a lifetime, the human heart beats more than two billion times. With each beat, flexible valves within the heart's chambers open and shut to prevent blood flowing backwards. With advancing age these valves can start to fail; the opening can become narrowed or the valve may leak. Narrowing of the aortic valve - known as aortic stenosis - is one of the most common forms of heart disease...
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