The social pressures leading to eating disorders are well known. But the disorder also has a biological component. Genetic studies have uncovered variants that are associated with the risk of developing anorexia, and twin studies suggest they may be a larger contributor to who will become anorexic or bulimic than social pressures.
Researchers from the Chinese Medical College of Soochow University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai have identified a new target for the treatment of chronic pain.
Clinical data show long-term safety, and hints of efficacy, of embryonic stem cell-derived retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells in patients with Stargardt's macular degeneration (SMD) and dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Understanding the genetic causes of diseases has allowed a better understanding what, from a cell biological perspective, is going wrong. "We're always defining things genetically, and that is something I subscribe to," Carl Ernst told BioWorld Today.
Enterovirus D68 has been around for decades, but this year it has seen a record-breaking number of infections. That surge, perhaps in combination with a general anxiety about infectious diseases nourished by threats like the West African Ebola outbreak, has the general public worried about a homegrown epidemic threat.
Data from a new clinical trial using gene therapy to treat X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (X-SCID), sometimes known as "bubble boy disease," suggest that a new vector used to deliver the IL2RG gene was as effective as previously used vectors, but it may be less likely to cause the leukemia that befell 5 of 20 patients in two earlier trials.
It's not often that the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine heads south to pick up an award. But that's the case for two of this year's winners, a husband-and-wife team who work at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway, just south of the Arctic Circle and well north of Stockholm.
