New research funded by March of Dimes has found biomarkers in maternal blood that accurately identified pregnant women who would go on to deliver babies up to two months prematurely. The findings were published today in the journal Science. This finding is important as doctors do not currently have ways to accurately assess which pregnancies will end with a premature birth, March of Dimes notes. Additionally, using those same blood
The challenge with diagnosing chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition that shows up in the overwhelming majority of American football players and other athletes who frequently sustain injuries to the head, is that it can only be diagnosed through an autopsy. Researchers at Medicortex Finland Oy, are working on a diagnostic kit that could detect CTE in a living person with a simple blood test or other body fluids. Actually
Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have found that thirdhand-smoke (THS) exposure has a significant effect on health as early as one month after initiation of exposure – an effect that worsens with time. THS results when exhaled smoke and smoke emanating from the tip of burning cigarettes gets on surfaces such as clothing, hair, homes, and cars. THS has been shown, in mice, to cause type 2 diabetes,
A newly identified biomarker panel could pave the way to earlier detection and better treatment for pancreatic cancer, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania. Currently over 53,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer -- the fourth leading cause of cancer death -- every year. The blood biomarkers, detailed today in Science Translational Medicine, correctly detected pancreatic cancer in
Medicortex Finland Oy, a biotechnology company developing a diagnostic kit for brain injury detection based on a medical breakthrough biomarker, recently completed analyzing the results from the first clinical trial. Medicortex is working towards the validation of a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) biomarker and incorporating it into a quick and reliable diagnostic kit that can be easily used by the first responders and healthcare professionals, and by people with no
Researchers have made a ground-breaking discovery revealing new molecular information on how the brain regulates depression and anxiety. In so doing, they identified a new molecule that alleviates anxiety and depressive behaviour in rodents. The research, led by Eleanor Coffey, Research Director at Åbo Akademi University in Finland is a collaborative effort between scientists in Finland and the US. The researchers found that a protein called JNK when active, represses
Patients who have received a solid organ transplant require lifelong immunosuppressive therapy. The threat of transplant rejection due to insufficient drug therapy must be balanced against increased risks of infections and cancer from excessive immunosuppression. A significant unmet need exists for non-invasive diagnostic tools to monitor transplant recipients, especially for early detection of active injury and rejection. A report in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics describes a new non-invasive test
Medicortex Finland Oy (www.medicortex.fi), a biotechnology company developing a diagnostic kit for brain injury based on a medical breakthrough biomarker, recently was granted clearance to begin a clinical trial. The trial will consist of patients that are hospitalized due to a head injury. “Collecting and testing human samples in a clinical trial is a significant accomplishment for Medicortex, and represents a meaningful step forward in the development of a fast
To treat or not to treat? That is the question researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) hope to answer with a new advance that could help doctors and their cancer patients decide if a particular therapy would be worth pursuing. Berkeley Lab researchers identified 14 genes regulating genome integrity that were consistently over-expressed in a wide variety of cancers. They then created a scoring
New research has shown how a cell surface molecule, Lymphotoxin β receptor, controls entry of T-cells into the thymus; and as such presents an opportunity to understanding why cancer patients who undergo bone-marrow transplant are slow to recover their immune system. The study, published in the Journal of Immunology, used mouse models to reveal an in vivo mechanism that researchers believe might also represent a novel pathway for immunotherapeutic targeting
People with high levels of four biomarkers in the blood may be more likely to develop a stroke than people with low levels of the biomarkers, according to a study published in the August 24, 2016, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “Identifying people who are at risk for stroke can help us determine who would benefit most from existing or new therapies
A team of West Virginia scientists have made a breakthrough in cancer research that could improve the results patients see from lung cancer treatments. Scientists from the West Virginia University Cancer Institute and the Morgantown-based bio-analytic technology company Protea say they've identified changes that occur at the molecular level in lung cancer cells. Those changes may make the cells resistant to cancer-fighting drugs, something researchers say can be a common
Cancer cells are notorious for their genomes gone haywire, often yielding fusion proteins — mash-ups of two disparate genes that, once united, assume new and harmful capabilities. Exactly how such genome scrambling impacts RNA, particularly the vast and mysterious world of non-coding RNA, has been largely unexplored. Now, a team led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) offers some early answers by studying an intriguing class of
Medicortex Finland Oy, a start-up biotechnology company focused on the diagnosis and treatment of neurodegenerative conditions has recently launched a funding round and is seeking investors to help fund research and development of a therapeutic drug and companion diagnostic test for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). The company aims to identify a TBI biomarker and, on this basis, develop a diagnostic test for the evaluation of TBI presence and severity. The
