Glioblastoma is one of the most common but also most aggressive brain tumors and usually leads to death quickly. It consists of different cell types and their precursors, which makes successful treatment difficult. To fight the driving force behind the tumor, the tumor stem cells, researchers are trying to drive the tumor cells into suicide, programmed cell death.
Metabolic diseases, especially the increasingly common type 2 diabetes, are consequences of a complex interaction between genetic predisposition and unfavorable living conditions. Scientists from the Helmholtz Zentrum München and the LMU were able to show for the first time a connection between the genetic endowment of a human and the differences in the metabolic balance. An identification of these genetic variations may in the future allow for the individual prediction of risks with regard to certain diseases, for example diabetes.
Too much fat in the body tissue can lead to serious health consequences such as diabetes or hypertension. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen and the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, USA) have now discovered a protein complex that appears to play a crucial role in the breakdown of body fat. (PLOS Biology, 25. 2008 November).
More and more people around the world are dying from being infected with both HIV and tuberculosis. The worldwide growing threat from the co-infection of the two life-threatening diseases was the focus of the international symposium of the Koch-Metschnikow-Forum "HIV & TB - a deadly alliance" on Monday evening in Berlin.
For the first time radiologists (including Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Johns Hopkins University, USA) examined the reliability of CT findings of the heart compared to the minimally invasive cardiac catheterization in an international and multi-center study. The result: With the non-invasive computed tomography is in need of treatment vasoconstriction allows the reliable detection, in the exact assessment of the severity of vasoconstriction of the catheter of the CT-based imaging, however, was superior. Privatdozent Dr. Marc Dewey, Department of Radiology at the Charité in Berlin and head of the study from the German side: "The result gives us confidence The study shows that we are close to the computed tomography angiography on the heels.."
A research team at the Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene (IMMH) of the University Hospital Freiburg identified a new population of immune cells. This discovery could be pointing the way for new therapeutic strategies chronic inflammatory bowel disease. To the research team from IMMH include Stephanie Sano, Viet Lac Bui, Arthur Mortha, Karin Oberle, Charlotte Heners and Prof. Dr. Andreas Diefenbach. Also working on the project Caroline Johner from the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology in Freiburg. The results of the research group are published in the current online edition of the scientific journal "Nature Immunology" that. Since 23 will be held November 2008 posted on the Internet (www.nature.com/ni/journal/vaop/ncurrent/index.html).
Children with sensitive skin have a higher risk of becoming infected with wart viruses. Thereupon, the Healthy Skin Campaign of statutory health and accident insurance back.
Scientists at the German Institute of Human Nutrition (DIfE) have identified together with doctors at the University of Tübingen a new biomarker, the harder to predict the heart attack and stroke risk. The biomarker is the protein molecule fetuin-A, which is produced in the liver and released into the blood. Researchers have for the first time shown that high blood levels of the biomarker associated with a three- to four-fold higher risk of heart attack and stroke. According to her could fetuin-A are important in the future as a new, independent risk marker for the prediction of cardiovascular disease.
A scientific study at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg is: The number of births is not influenced by the moon. Dr. Oliver Kiss has it analyzed more than four million births.