Mosquitoes are one of humanity’s greatest nemeses, estimated to spread infections to nearly 700 million people per year and cause more than one million deaths. UC Santa Barbara Distinguished Professor Craig Montell has made a breakthrough in one technique for controlling populations of Aedes aegypti, a mosquito that transmits dengue, yellow fever, Zika and other…

People who clock six to seven hours of sleep a night had the lowest chance of dying from a heart attack or stroke when compared with those who got less or more sleep, according to a new study. This trend remained true even after the research team accounted for other known conditions or risk factors…

Researchers have developed a new statistical model that predicts which cities are more likely to become infectious disease hotspots, based both on interconnectivity between cities and the idea that some cities are more suitable environments for infection than others. In an epidemic, different cities have varying risks of triggering superspreader events, which spread unusually large…

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a cancer of white blood cells. Researchers discovered that AML cancer cells depend on a protein called SCP4 to survive. They think the previously little-known protein is involved in a metabolic pathway the cancer cells need to survive. SCP4 provides researchers with a potential new therapeutic approach for this aggressive…

Researchers have made new findings which provide a broader understanding of how dormant hematopoietic stem cells are activated and could pave the way towards therapeutic treatments for a number of cancers. The team has made the discovery by performing a deep mechanistic study of lysosomes, which are membrane-bound organelles found in all cells. Lysosomes were…

A drug treatment that acts as a decoy against SARS-CoV-2 was highly effective at preventing death and lung damage in humanized animal models of severe COVID-19 disease. The study suggests that the drug has the potential to treat COVID-19 patients, including those who are infected with aggressive SARS-CoV-2 variants. The study’s senior lead author is…

A 15-year longitudinal study shows that childhood insomnia symptoms that persist into adulthood are strong determinants of mood and anxiety disorders in young adults. Results show that insomnia symptoms persisting from childhood through adolescence and into adulthood were associated with a 2.8-fold increased risk of internalizing disorders. Insomnia symptoms that newly developed over the course…

Researchers have discovered that an FDA-approved drug acts on support cells in the central nervous system to encourage sensory neurons to regrow after injury. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a drug that helps sensory neurons in the central nervous system heal. Neurons are surrounded by support cells that…

Treating septic shock in children with a combination of intravenous vitamin C, vitamin B1 and hydrocortisone (a commonly used steroid) is associated with lower mortality, according to a new study. Septic shock is the result of a severe systemic response to infection causing organ failure and dangerously low blood pressure. It is one of the…

Researchers exploring dementia-related proteins in the brain identified Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) as a key misfolded protein. «Dementia is very complex, but you can simplify it: the disease is caused by ‘gloppy proteins’ in the brain,» explained lead investigator Peter T. Nelson, MD, PhD, Sanders-Brown Center on Aging and Department of Pathology, University of Kentucky, Lexington,…