This week, publication of a special issue on tuberculosis (TB) begins in PLOS Medicine, advised by guest editors Richard Chaisson of Johns Hopkins University, Claudia Denkinger of the University of Heidelberg, and Mark Hatherill of the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Institute. An estimated 10 million people developed tuberculosis (TB) and 1.6 million died of TB…
Although the majority of patients who have blood cancers are older adults, they make up only a small percentage of participants in the clinical trials that lead to new therapies. That’s because the standard research methods used in oncology (cancer medicine) are not ideal for identifying certain vulnerabilities linked to aging, such as having multiple…
ITHACA, N.Y. – Dr. Sunita Sah practiced general medicine for several years in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service. When she came to the United States, she noticed something strange. The U.K. guidelines for tests such as mammograms and colon cancer screenings drastically differed from those in the U.S. – even though they were based…
April 5, 2019 — Even tiny amounts of gluten in foods are troublesome for people with celiac disease, and restaurants may be the hardest places to avoid the protein, finds a study by Benjamin Lebwohl, MD, MS, Celiac Disease Center at NY-Presbyterian Hospital and assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School. More…
The areola is the darker area of skin that surrounds the nipple. As with the breasts and other parts of the body, the areolas come in many different shapes, sizes, and colors. It is normal for areolas to change in size and color over time. The areola contains the Montgomery tubercles, which are small glands…
A team of biologists and computer scientists has mapped out a network of interactions for how plant genes coordinate their response to nitrogen, a crucial nutrient and the main component of fertilizer. The work, published in the journal Nature Communications, offers a potential framework and more efficient methods that can be used to investigate a…
Bottom Line: For this analysis, researchers examined monthly data on U.S. background checks for gun purchases and permits from November 1998 through April 2016, and they looked for purchasing trends after mass shootings during that time. A total of 124 major mass shootings (5 or more individuals injured or killed) and nearly 234 million background…
Bottom Line: This study was an economic evaluation and it used a model to examine the costs of subsequent cancer treatment associated with continued smoking by patients after their initial cancer treatment failed. The model was developed to consider a host of factors, including expected initial treatment failure rates in nonsmoking patients, how common smoking…
The international collaboration, led by the University of Exeter and published in Nature Communications, has found 47 links between our genetic code and the quality, quantity and timing of how we sleep. They include ten new genetic links with sleep duration and 26 with sleep quality. The Medical Research Council-funded study looked at data from…
The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) is establishing six new Research Units. This decision was made by the DFG Joint Committee upon recommendation by the Senate in Bonn. The new units will receive a total of approximately €18 million, including a 22 percent programme allowance for indirect project costs, for an initial three-year period.…