Novel blood test could diagnose diseases with no known antigens

It may one day be possible to identify cancer, autoimmune diseases, and a wealth of other conditions from a single drop of blood, after a team from the University of Pittsburgh reveals the creation of a test that holds promise for such a feat.

In the Journal of Immunological Methods, the researchers explain how they developed a test that may be able to identify diseases for which there are no known microbial causes.

Antigens are substances - such as bacteria, viruses, or chemicals - that induce an immune response in the body, causing the immune system to produce antibodies that target and destroy these foreign invaders.

Read more: Novel blood test could diagnose diseases with no known antigens

Researchers have created a blood test that they say could diagnose a number of diseases with no
known microbial causes.

Source: medicalnewstoday

Yarsagumba - The “Miracle” Mushroom.

With the melting of the snows in the Himalayas, hordes of villagers of Nepal’s far western region trek up to the alpine pastures near the towering Himalayan peaks where they pitch camp for an extended stay of almost eight weeks, braving the cold and harsh environment. They spend their days mostly on all fours, crawling through the shrub lands, digging with utmost care when they espy an unusual kind of mushroom called Yarsagumba ...

What is Yarsagumba and why is it in so much demand?

Yarsagumba (Cordyceps or also Ophiocordyceps sinensis) is a most weird herb. One term often used—Chinese Caterpillar Fungus—is pretty descriptive of the species. So is dong chong xia cao (winter insect, summer grass) as Yarsagumba is often referred to in China.

Read more: Yarsagumba - The “Miracle” Mushroom.

Source: mightyyak

Why You Should be a Medical Laboratory Scientist!

A medical laboratory scientist (MLS) (also referred to as a clinical laboratory scientist, medical laboratory technologist or medical technologist) is a healthcare professional who performs chemical, hematological, immunologic, histopathological, cytopathological, microscopic, and bacteriological diagnostic analyses on body fluids such as blood, urine, sputum, stool, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), peritoneal fluid, pericardial fluid, and synovial fluid, as well as other specimens.

Medical laboratory scientists work in clinical laboratories at hospitals, physician's offices, reference labs, biotechnology labs and non-clinical industrial labs.

Source: CareerCentre

Laboratory Medicine at Curtin University, Australia.

Blood, body tissue and human biology - major parts of a medical scientists' job are an important part of the healthcare system.

Vimiksha Khimji is a laboratory medicine student at Curtin University. She talks about her passion for the field and the career pathway and opportunities available.

Read more: Laboratory Medicine at Curtin University, Australia.

Source: Curtin University

Written in Blood

A tour of evolving strategies for identifying circulating disease biomarkers

Blood is the only tissue that makes contact with every organ in the body. Theoretically, probing the DNA, RNA, vesicles, and cellular debris it carries could help diagnose or monitor conditions from placental disorders to Alzheimer’s disease.

The first application of this approach was prenatal genetic screening—which analyzes fragments of fetal DNA in an expectant mother’s blood—available to clinicians since October 2011. So far, these tests have largely focused on identifying chromosomal abnormalities such as Down syndrome. But expanding their utility to monitoring other circulating biomarkers, such as RNA and the contents of membrane-bound microvesicles and exosomes, is on the rise.

Read more: Written in Blood

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Source: theScientist

Fat vs Carbs: What’s Really Worse for Your Health?

The traditional balanced diet may be way out of whack. To fight obesity and diabetes, doctors and nutritionists are embracing diets that were once called fads.

“PEOPLE have told me what I do is dangerous. They have walked away from me at meetings,” says David Unwin, a doctor practising in Southport, UK. Unwin suggests to his patients with type 2 diabetes or who want to lose weight that they do the opposite of what official health advice recommends. He advises them to stop counting calories, eat high-fat foods – including saturated fats – and avoid carbohydrates, namely sugar and starch. Telling people to avoid sugar is uncontroversial; the rest is medical heresy.

Read more: Fat vs Carbs: What’s Really Worse for Your Health?

Source: NewScientist

How Dopamine Tunes Working Memory

Dopamine receptors in the cortex orient the brain toward the task at hand.

A new study reveals how dopamine contributes to working memory. Using simultaneous positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), scientists have shown that the density of cortical dopamine D1 receptors in healthy individuals is related to a decoupling of the frontoparietal and default networks. The findings, reported by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston and colleagues today (June 3) in Science Advances, may offer clues to how dopamine signaling becomes disrupted in schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders.

“The end game is trying to relate [dopamine signaling] back to schizophrenia and other disorders with working memory impairment,” study coauthor Joshua Roffman of MGH and Harvard University told The Scientist.

Read more: How Dopamine Tunes Working Memory

PET-MRI of dopamine receptor density and network function

JOSHUA ROFFMAN MD, MMSC

Source: theScientist

Synthetic Biology Comes into Its Own

Researchers create novel genetic circuits that give insight into, and are inspired by, nature.

Every two hours in Matthew Bennett’s Rice University lab, cyan and yellow lights flashed in synchronization. Bennett and his team had engineered 12 components to generate the coordinated oscillations. This circuit wasn’t electronic, however; it was biological. Two populations of E. coli, each carrying a synthetic gene circuit, cycled in synchronous pulses every 14 hours.

Bennett’s work, published last year in Science, is a key application of modern synthetic biology: taking biological components and linking them together to form novel functional circuits. Instead of a program coded in Java and executed by a computer’s working memory, commands were written in DNA and carried out by the microbes’ cellular machinery. LEDs were replaced with fluorescent proteins, and molecular signaling cascades served as the system’s wires.

Read more: Synthetic Biology Comes into Its Own

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Source: theScientist

Amazing Body Paint Animal Art

Artist Johannes Stoetter has gained worldwide attention for using body paint to create stunning animal creations.

In this video created by Stoetter, you may think you're seeing a frog and a chameleon -- but in fact you're seeing human beings, painted and intertwined to create an incredible illusion.

See more: Amazing Body Paint Animal Art

Source: NewYorkMagazine

Can scientists really have work/life balance?

To be a top performer you need to be happy – something academics tend to forget.

Scientists spend a lot of time trouble-shooting. Every day we work on our protocols, and if something doesn’t work, we try again and again, until we fix it. We keep track of all the factors and accurately measure all variables, to find the perfect combination of parameters that work.

If there is one thing we can claim after getting a PhD, we’re definitely great at problem-solving. Can we also trouble-shoot our way out of the everlasting dilemma on how to find work/life balance?

Read more: Can scientists really have work/life balance?

Elisa Lazzari

Source: NatureJobs