Boston, MA - A new study by researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and colleagues describes the pre-clinical development of a therapeutic that could potentially be used to treat type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, and other metabolic diseases. The researchers developed an antibody that improves glucose regulation and reduces fatty liver in obese mice by targeting a hormone in adipose (fat) tissue called aP2 (also known as FABP4).

The study will be published online December 23, 2015 in Science Translational Medicine.

Janardan Pandey, Ph.D., an immunogeneticist specializing in immunoglobulin GM genes at the Medical University of South Carolina, helped monitor for immune responses that could limit the effectiveness of the broadly neutralizing antibody VRC01 in a phase 1 trial of that antibody in HIV-infected individuals led by a team at the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. The results of the trial were reported in an article in the Dec. 23, 2015 issue of Science Translational Medicine, on which Pandey was a co-author. Pandey's expertise as an immunogeneticist specializing in immunoglobulin GM genes was needed for the trial because the VRC01 antibody is built on the immunoglobulin GM3 platform.

It has been a busy year for Solar System exploration – and particularly our galactic neighborhoods small icy bodies. Comets, asteroids, Kuiper Belt Objects and planetary satellites have all been in the news – from stunning images of comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko at the start of the year, to the recent close-up of Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, via Ceres and Pluto.

Jumping is not about fun and games for insect larvae. They must do it to survive. This manoeuvre is all about finding a shady spot to develop in, according to researchers from Kyushu University in Japan, who led research into the jumping behavior of a minute parasitic wasp, published in Springer's journal The Science of Nature.

The use of jumping as a means of movement has only been observed in a few species of parasitic wasp larvae, suggesting that this behavior does not easily evolve. One such wasp is the three millimeter long Bathyplectes anurus. This parasite is used as a form of biological pest control against alfalfa weevil (Hypera postica), a destructive agricultural pest that attacks legumes.

(Boston) - For salt marshes, hurricanes are just another day at the beach.

These coastal wetlands are in retreat in many locations around the globe--raising deep concerns about damage to the wildlife that the marshes nourish and the loss of their ability to protect against violent storms. The biggest cause of their erosion is waves driven by moderate storms, not occasional major events such as Hurricane Sandy, researchers from Boston University and the United States Geological Survey now have shown.

A new analysis indicates that many patients continue working after being diagnosed with metastatic cancer, but a heavy burden of symptoms may prevent them from doing so. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study illustrates the need to treat difficult symptoms so that patients can maintain their employment.

Improved treatments have helped to prolong the lives of patients with metastatic cancer. Because individuals diagnosed with metastatic cancer may wish to continue to work, understanding how their illness affects their employment may help patients make adjustments.

Many people in Russia know about the Dima Rogachev Centre - particularly those who have faced the challenge of child cancer. The centre is Europe's largest pediatric cancer care facility and is named after a boy with advanced cancer who wrote a letter to President Putin inviting him to visit; the invitation was accepted, and after the visit, the decision was made to build a state-of-the-art Centre for Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Immunology, based in the Research Institute of Pediatric Hematology. The new centre was named after Dmitry 'Dima' Rogachev who died two years later at the age of 12 while the centre was still under construction.

Doctors Seeking Help from Mathematicians

Both acute kidney injury and chronic kidney disease were common in patients undergoing major vascular surgical procedures and were associated with an increase in long-term cardiovascular-specific death compared with patients with no kidney disease, according to a study published online by JAMA Surgery.

Azra Bihorac, M.D., M.S., of the University of Florida, Gainesville, and colleagues examined the association between acute kidney injury (AKI), chronic kidney disease (CKD) and long-term cardiovascular-specific mortality among patients who underwent inpatient vascular surgery between January 2000 and November 2010 at a tertiary care teaching hospital. Final follow-up was completed July 2014 to assess survival through January 2014.

The discovery of exceptionally well-preserved, tiny fossil seeds dating back to the Early Cretaceous corroborates that flowering plants were small opportunistic colonizers at that time, according to a new study.

Angiosperms, or flowering plants, diversified during the Early Cretaceous, about 100 to 130 million years ago. Based on evidence from living and fossil plants, the earliest angiosperms are usually thought to have had small stature. New data from the fossil record presented here strongly support this notion, but also indicates key differences from modern flowering plants.

The small seed embryos -- less than 0.3 millimeters in size -- and their surrounding nutrient storage tissues in well-preserved seeds were found in eastern North America and Portugal. 

“Is my cholesterol too high?” may become an irrelevant question.

There was a time when the total cholesterol number rising above 240 meant that you had a simple condition called “high cholesterol” and that avoiding fat and perhaps taking medication could reduce your “cholesterol” level the blood. If you did this, you could avoid a heart attack. Cholesterol was described as a fatty molecule that clogged arteries in the heart and having too much of it made heart attacks and strokes more likely. This "plumbing" analogy made sense to almost everyone, so we proceeded to eat low fat diets and started taking Lipitor.
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