NORFOLK, Va. — Eastern Virginia Medical School researchers have identified a potential novel treatment strategy for the social impairment of people with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), an aspect of the condition that has a profound impact on qual…
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Patients undergoing plastic or reconstructive surgery should receive a risk assessment before their procedure to predict whether they’ll develop potentially fatal blood clots in the legs or lungs, according to research at the Univ…
Building on their 2001 discovery of a cellular doorway used by anthrax toxin to enter cells, University of Wisconsin Medical School researchers have found a second anthrax toxin doorway, or receptor. The finding could offer new clues to preventing the toxin’s entrance into cells. The researchers also have found that when they isolated a specific segment of the receptor in the laboratory, they could use it as a decoy to lure anthrax toxin away from the real cell receptors, preventing much of the toxin from entering cells and inflicting its usually fatal damage.
Researchers at Harvard say they have overcome a preliminary, yet critical, hurdle in the push to develop antibiotics against drug-resistant bacterial strains. Most attempts have been plagued by a lack of molecular tools for manipulating–and ultimately improving — the structure of naturally occurring antibiotics. The researchers report that they harnessed two enzymes, which work by adding sugars to a central molecular core, and used them to create new versions of two potent antibiotics, vancomycin and teicoplanin.
Elderly heart attack patients who visit a cardiologist’s office in the months after leaving the hospital are less likely to die within two years than patients who visit only their primary care doctor, a study by Harvard Medical School researchers finds. And patients who visit both a cardiologist and a primary care doctor have even better outcomes than those who visit only a cardiologist.