Birmingham
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Motivation and expectation may be factors in helping older adults regain lost functional ability after hospitalization, say researchers with the Birmingham Veterans Administration Medical Center and UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham).
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The only available screening tests for ovarian cancer fail to catch early signs of the disease and often result in unnecessary surgery, said researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The new study looked at a screening regimen that combines ultrasound and a blood test for CA-125, a marker for women's cancer.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - A new study reveals the first-ever genetic link to the reason African-Americans are at increased risk of dying from colon cancer.
PHILADELPHIA - Researchers have identified a possible genetic cause for increased risk for a more advanced form of colorectal cancer in blacks that leads to shorter survival, according to data published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) adapts so well to the body's defense system that any successful AIDS vaccine must keep pace with the ever-changing immunological profile of the virus, according to researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the University of Oxford in England.
That first "mini-stroke" may be more of a benign event for women than men, according to researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and Yale University. The findings underscore the need to continue researching gender differences in disease prevention and follow-up care.
UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) researchers have developed a new, inexpensive and efficient method for producing and studying a type of human papillomavirus (HPV) that causes cervical cancer. The process could speed understanding of how the virus functions and causes diseases, and lead to new prevention or treatment options.
Some men may not be willing to use condoms regularly even after seeking treatment for a sexually transmitted infection and acknowledging their protective value, according to a new survey of clinic patients. Two-thirds of the men with a primary sexual partner and one-third of those without a primary partner said they were not ready to use condoms consistently.
Physicists in the UK are ready to start construction of a major part of an advanced new experiment, designed to search for elusive gravitational waves. Gravitational waves should be created when massive objects, such as black holes or neutron stars in astronomical binaries interact and spiral-in towards, and eventually collide with, each other emitting a strong burst of gravitational radiation or when a star, at the end of its long evolutionary phase, collapses due to its own gravity resulting in a supernova with the core forming a neutron star or a black hole.
A research team led by The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center has tested a novel "viral smart bomb" therapy that can completely eradicate brain tumors in mice, while leaving normal brain tissue alone. The therapy, known as Delta-24-RGD, is thought to be the first treatment for malignant glioma, the deadliest form of brain cancer. It is a new-generation "replication-competent oncolytic" adenovirus therapy ?? defined as a therapeutic virus that can spread, wavelike, throughout a tumor, infecting and killing cancer cells. There is no adequate treatment for these deadly brain cancers and, before this study, few experimental therapies tested in animals have shown much improvement.
American children whose genetic roots strongly reach back to Africa are less sensitive to insulin-a factor important in the development of type 2 diabetes-than those whose ancestors hailed heavily from Europe, according to study results released today. Rather than relying on broad categories of race, such as black or white, researchers in diabetes and obesity from the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the University of Alabama at Birmingham analyzed a group of children for 20 key genetic markers found far more often in those of African descent than those of European descent. They found that the more African-origin markers in children's genetic makeup, the less their bodies responded to insulin-and the more insulin in their blood.
Two versions of an oral drug that halts the deadly action of smallpox and related orthopox viruses have been shown by researchers in Alabama and California to be effective in cowpox-infected mice, whether given three to five days before or two to three days after infection. The study evaluated the dosage regimen and effectiveness of four different ether lipid analogs of cidofovir (CDV), a compound that blocks the activity of variola, the virus that causes smallpox, cowpox, vaccinia and other orthopox viruses. Shown most effective in treating lethal cowpox infection in mice were hexadecyloxypropyl-CDV (HDP-CDV) and octadecyloxyethyl-CDV (ODE-CDV). In addition, the study pinpointed the time period for effectiveness when the drug is administered prior to or after infection.
Poor, black teen girls who think their boyfriends want a baby are 12 times more likely to wish they were pregnant compared with similar teens who expressed no desire to become pregnant, according to new research. Girls in the study who wanted to become pregnant were almost four times as likely to have a partner who was at least five years older than themselves. They were also twice as likely to report feelings of low self-esteem and low family support, and twice as likely to feel that their partner would disapprove of using condoms.
To remain young at heart, eat less. That's the message drawn from new research out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where a team of scientists studied middle-aged mice that were put on a calorie-restricted diet. What they found were signs of a remarkable uptick in heart health in old age. "It looks like caloric restriction just retarded the whole aging process in the heart," said one of the researchers. The new study provides evidence that -- even starting in middle age -- cutting calories can confer significant health benefits for the heart and extend its working life. It does so, according to the team's results, by exerting influence on the genetic program that governs heart cells.
Chaos can explain the seemingly random behavior of two moons of Saturn, JPL researchers say. The moons --- Pandora and Prometheus --- are more than 100,000 miles off course of where they would be if their orbits followed conventional physics. "With chaotic interactions, a barely perceptible difference in starting conditions can make such a great difference in later positions that the movements are not fully predictable over time. The two moons give each other a gravitational kick each time Pandora passes inside Prometheus, about every 28 days. Because neither's orbit is quite circular, the distance between them on those occasions -- hence the strength of the kick -- varies."
