A new study finds a wide state-by-state variation in rates of melanoma caused by ultraviolet (UV) exposure with highest rates in several states on the East and West Coast including Hawaii, but also a few landlocked states, including Utah, Vermont, and Minnesota. The report, appearing in the International Journal of Cancer, finds state-level incidence rates for UV-attributable melanoma ranged from 15 cases per 100,000 in Alaska to 65 cases per 100,000 in Hawaii. The authors say variations between states likely reflect a combination of the strength the sun’s rays, participation in outdoor activities, sun protection, indoor tanning, and early detection.
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Robert Stahelin studies some of the world’s deadliest viruses. Filoviruses, including Ebola virus and Marburg virus, cause viral hemorrhagic fever with high fatality rates.
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Like finding a needle in a haystack, Liviu Movileanu can find a single molecule in blood. Movileanu, professor at Syracuse University, and recently graduated Ph.D. student Avinash Thakur will present their research on Monday, February 17 at the 64th Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society in San Diego, California.
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A new technique can label diverse molecules and amplify the signal to help researchers spot those that are especially rare. Called SABER (signal amplification by exchange reaction), Peng Yin’s lab at Harvard’s Wyss Institute first introduced this method last year and since have found ways to apply it to proteins, DNA and RNA.
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Sleep-deprived fruit flies helped reveal what induces sleep. University of Oxford researchers Anissa Kempf, Gero Miesenböck, and colleagues reveal that fruit fly sleep is driven by oxidative stress, the imbalance of free radicals and antioxidants in the body. Kempf
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The top contributor to familial Parkinson’s disease is mutations in leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2), whose large and difficult structure has finally been solved, paving the way for targeted therapies.
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Genes are like instructions, but with options for building more than one thing. Daniel Larson, senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute, studies this gene “splicing” process, which happens in normal cells and goes awry in blood cancers like leukemia.
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Yvonne Chen engineers immune cells to target their most evasive enemy: cancer. New cancer immunotherapies generate immune cells that are effective killers of blood cancers, but they have a hard time with solid tumors.
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More than half of all cancer patients undergo radiation therapy and the dose is critical. Too much and the surrounding tissue gets damaged, too little and the cancer cells survive.
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Why do predators sometimes lay dormant eggs — eggs which are hardy, but take a long time to hatch, and are expensive to produce?
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