science newsletter: Science News SciGuru.com

Δευτέρα 19 Αυγούστου 2013

Science News SciGuru.com

Coffee and tea may contribute to a healthy liver
Cell memory mechanism discovered
Brain Cancer Survival Improved Following FDA Approval of Bevacizumab
Major study links ageing gene to blood cancer

Coffee and tea may contribute to a healthy liver

Posted: 19 Aug 2013 07:19 AM PDT

Surprise! Your morning cup of tea or coffee may be doing more than just perking you up before work.

An international team of researchers led by Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School (Duke-NUS) and the Duke University School of Medicine suggest that increased caffeine intake may reduce fatty liver in people with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

Cell memory mechanism discovered

Posted: 19 Aug 2013 07:13 AM PDT

The cells in our bodies can divide as often as once every 24 hours, creating a new, identical copy. DNA binding proteins called transcription factors are required for maintaining cell identity. They ensure that daughter cells have the same function as their mother cell, so that for example muscle cells can contract or pancreatic cells can produce insulin. However, each time a cell divides the specific binding pattern of the transcription factors is erased and has to be restored in both mother and daughter cells.

Brain Cancer Survival Improved Following FDA Approval of Bevacizumab

Posted: 19 Aug 2013 07:00 AM PDT

A new population-based study has found that patients with glioblastoma who died in 2010, after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of bevacizumab, had lived significantly longer than patients who died of the disease in 2008, prior to the conditional approval of the drug for the treatment of the deadly brain cancer. Bevacizumab is used to treat patients with certain cancers whose cancer has spread. The study appears in the journal Cancer.

Major study links ageing gene to blood cancer

Posted: 18 Aug 2013 07:30 PM PDT

A gene that helps control the ageing process by acting as a cell’s internal clock has been linked to cancer by a major new study.

Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, found a genetic variant that influences the ageing process among four new variants they linked to myeloma – one of the most common types of blood cancer.

The study more than doubles the number of genetic variants linked to myeloma, bringing the total number to seven, and sheds important new light on the genetic causes of the disease.