Liver

Scientists ID molecular 'switch' in liver that triggers harmful effects of saturated and trans fats

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers have identified a molecular mechanism in the liver that explains, for the first time, how consuming foods rich in saturated fats and trans-fatty acids causes elevated blood levels of cholesterol and triglycerides and increases one's risk of heart disease and certain cancers. In the Jan. 28 issue of Cell, scientists led by Bruce Spiegelman, PhD, rep...

Research Gives Hope For Liver Damage

Millions of patients suffering from liverdamage (cirrhosis) and failure may benefit from research by theUniversities of Edinburgh and Southampton which may lead to newlife-saving treatments. There is currently no cure for liver cirrhosisand a patient's only hope of survival is to receive a liver transplant.The Edinburgh scientists from the University's Centre for InflammationResearch, in co...

New methods of gene delivery using lasers

Leading laser scientists at the University of St Andrews have developed a new method of delivering genes to cells using laser light. The new technique, which is cheap and powerful, could have important implications for future studies in biomedicine and healthcare. Optical technology has huge potential for novel developments in the bio-medical field and St Andrews has outstanding research...

Gene Therapy Cures Inherited Liver Disease In Rats

A single dose of gene-virus combination cured rats of a inherited liver disease in which lack of a gene causes the accumulation of bilirubin –which, untreated, results in jaundice and brain damage, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in a report in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences. "This is the first time this disease (Crigler-Najjar syndrome) has been complete...

UNC launches study of liver injury caused by drugs

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is one of five clinical centers nationwide to receive funds from the National Institutes of Health to study why good medications are sometimes bad for the liver. During the next seven years, the Drug-Induced Liver Injury Network, or DILIN, will study patients who have suffered severe liver injury caused by prescription and over-the-counter m...

Gene therapy cures inherited liver disease in rats

A single dose of gene-virus combination cured rats of a inherited liver disease in which lack of a gene causes the accumulation of bilirubin –which, untreated, results in jaundice and brain damage, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in a report in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences. "This is the first time this disease (Crigler-Najjar syndrome) has been complet...

Mouse with designer liver has enhanced glucose tolerance, insulin response

A collaborative effort led by The Burnham Institute's Gen-Sheng Feng has created a mouse with improved glucose tolerance and insulin activity in the liver, and generated new findings about insulin-signaling in the liver that could prove useful in understanding the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes. These results, to be published by Nature Medicine in May, were made available to the scientific commu...

Excess liver gene protects against high-fat diet

A gene that senses fat in the liver can modulate the consequences of eating a high-fat, Western diet, new research published in the May issue of Cell Metabolism reveals. Mice with an excess of liver X receptor (LXRa), when fed a diet high in fat, remained free from the high cholesterol and blood vessel plaques exhibited by animals with the normal complement of receptors. Remarkably, in mi...

Recombinant DNA technology may enable oral, rather than injectable, delivery of protein drugs

Transferrin, a plasma protein found in blood, can be fused with large, protein-based drugs such as granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) to create a new oral compound that is capable of surviving the journey through the gastrointestinal (GI) tract and then able to cross over into the bloodstream to be used by the body, according to research from the University of Southern California Schoo...

Self-assembled DNA buckyballs for drug delivery

DNA isn't just for storing genetic codes any more. Since DNA can polymerize -- linking many molecules together into larger structures -- scientists have been using it as a nanoscale building material, constructing geometric shapes and even working mechanical devices. Now Cornell University researchers have made DNA buckyballs -- tiny geodesic spheres that could be used for drug delivery an...

Insulin pulses keep the liver lean

Insulin, a hormone long recognized as a generator of fat, also keeps fat in the liver under control, according to a new study in the July issue of Cell Metabolism. The newly discovered role for insulin may explain how an organ frequently flooded with the fat-building hormone normally stays trim and also suggests new dietary strategies and treatments to avoid fatty liver, a growing healthcare epid...

New research could help us deliver genes for new bone formation

UK scientists are working on new methods to regenerate cartilage and bone by delivering genes to stem cells within the body to instruct them to turn into bone cells. The research, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), could lead to a new approach to tissue engineering. With the ageing populations of Western countries it holds the potential of significant be...

“Hitchhiking?Viruses as Cancer Drug Delivery System

About five to seven million years ago, when the lineage of humans and chimpanzees split, edible root plants similar to rutabagas and turnips may have been one of the reasons. According to research by anthropologists Greg Laden of the University of Minnesota and Richard Wrangham of Harvard University, the presence of fleshy underground storage organs like roots and tubers must have sustained our a...

'Cookbook recipes' would cure disease with nontoxic DNA delivery systems

Scientists studying the structure and interaction of negatively charged lipids and DNA molecules have created a "cookbook" for a class of nontoxic DNA delivery systems that will assist doctors and clinicians in the safe and effective delivery of genetic medicine. As reported in the Aug. 9 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers have now performed a careful...

Discarded placentas deliver researchers promising cells similar to embryonic stem cells

Routinely discarded as medical waste, placental tissue could feasibly provide an abundant source of cells with the same potential to treat diseases and regenerate tissues as their more controversial counterparts, embryonic stem cells, suggests a University of Pittsburgh study to be published in the journal Stem Cells and available now as an early online publication in Stem Cells Express. A...

Bare metal stents deliver gene therapy to heart vessels with less inflammation in animal studies

Improved materials may allow stents, tiny metal scaffolds inserted into blood vessels, to better deliver beneficial genes to patients with heart disease, by reducing the risk of inflammation that often negates initial benefits. The new technique, using a compound that binds in an extremely thin layer to bare metal surfaces, may have potential uses in other areas of medicine that make use of metal...

Common alternative treatment for liver disease is found to be ineffective

Results of high-quality randomized clinical trials have determined that milk thistle extract, a widely used alternative medication, may not have any significant influence on the course of patients with alcoholic liver disease or hepatitis B or C liver disease. These findings are published in The American Journal of Gastroenterology. According to the previous studies, milk thistle extracts...

Targeted drug delivery achieved with nanoparticle-aptamer bioconjugates

Ground-breaking results from researchers at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, disclosed at the 13th European Cancer Conference (ECCO) have shown for the first time that targeted drug delivery is possible using nanoparticle-apatamer conjugates. Nucleic acid ligands (referred to as aptamers) are short DNA or RNA fragments that can bind to target an...

Texas scientists discover how a hepatitis C protein promotes liver cancer

Scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) have identified a key biochemical connection between the hepatitis C virus and liver cancer. The molecular mechanism is similar to the one that links the human papilloma virus (HPV), the cause of genital warts, and cervical cancer, according to Dr. Stanley M. Lemon, the senior author of a paper on the discovery that w...

Cellular scale drug delivery from the inside out

Delivering a dose of chemotherapy drugs to specific cancer cells without the risk of side affects to healthy cells may one day be possible thanks to a nanoscale drug delivery system being explored by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory. Using tiny silica particles call mesoporous nanospheres to carry drugs inside living cells, Ames Laboratory chemist Victor Lin i...

Liver cancer linked to cellular repair pathway

The unchecked activity of a cell signaling pathway crucial in embryonic development and the liver's response to injury leads to liver cancer, researchers from Duke University Medical Center and John Hopkins University School of Medicine have found. Because the pathway, called Hedgehog, is present only in immature, stem-like liver cells, the discovery offers hope for targeted treatment of l...

New compound protects against liver cancer

Scientists have identified a new compound called CDDO-Im that protects against the development of liver cancer in laboratory animals. Experiments, led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, show CDDO-Im to be effective at doses 100 times lower than other compounds known to prevent cancer in people. Because of its makeup, the researchers believe CDDO-Im could be par...

Wrinkled membranes create novel drug-delivery system

A University of Illinois scientist studying how membranes wrinkle has discovered a novel system for on-demand drug delivery. Sahraoui Chaieb, a professor of mechanical and industrial engineering, has created temperature-sensitive capsules that can release drugs on demand. The capsules, which can range in size from 10 to 100 microns, can be tuned to deliver drugs at different rates. Chaieb...

Scientists force viruses to evolve as better delivery vehicles for gene therapy

Viruses and humans have evolved together over millions of years in a game of one-upmanship that, often as not, left humans sick or worse. The adeno-associated virus, or AAV, is a common, though innocuous, resident of the body...

Pennsylvania researchers find liver transplants provide metabolic cure for rare genetic disease

Liver transplants cured the metabolic symptoms of 11 patients with a rare but devastating genetic condition known as Maple Syrup Urine Disease (MSUD), according to a study by researchers from Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and the Clinic for Special Children. All patients from the study (ranging in age from 1-20) are alive and well with normal liver function, according to the researcher...

New 'self-exploding' microcapsules could take sting out of drug delivery

Belgian chemists have developed "self-exploding" microcapsules that could one day precisely release drugs and vaccines inside the human body weeks or even months after injection. The study, by researchers at Ghent University and the Universit? Catholique de Louvain, is scheduled to appear in the Jan. 9, 2006, print issue of the American Chemical Society's journal...

Predicting successful outcomes in living-donor liver transplants

A new study on identifying which patients were likely to have poor outcomes following a living-donor liver transplant (LDLT) found that measuring how a certain non-toxic dye was eliminated by the liver shortly after surgery was an accurate indicator of liver function, and therefore a reliable indicator of the outcome of the procedure. The study used a simple non-invasive device to measure the dye...

Marrow-derived stem cells deliver new cytokine to kill brain tumor cells, offer protection

Attaching a recently discovered cytokine to neural stem cells derived from bone marrow, researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute have developed a tool to track and kill malignant brain tumor cells and provide long-term protection against their return. Results of an animal study are published in the March 1, 2006 issue of Cancer Research, and the re...

Cycles of cell death, proliferation key to liver cancer

Research at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine shows that liver cancer is likely caused by cycles of liver cell death and renewal. The research, appearing online the week of June 19 in advance of publication in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, underscores the importance of JNK1-mediated cell death and compensatory proliferation. T...

Uniform tungsten trimers stand and deliver

Like tiny nano-soldiers on parade, the cyclic tungsten trioxide clusters line up molecule-by-molecule on the titanium dioxide platform. One tungsten atom from each cluster is raised slightly, holding forth the potential to execute catalytic reactions. The nanostructures constitute a new model system, a simplified version of a catalyst that would be used in an application. Such models reve...

Interaction between lymph and liver cells may affect immune response

A new study on the ability of liver cells to interact with T cells (lymph cells that play a role in regulating the immune response) found that such interactions do occur and demonstrated the mechanism by which they may take place. The results may help explain the altered immune responses that occur with aging and other conditions and may be useful in developing therapies for viral hepatitis and a...

Coated nanoparticles solve sticky drug-delivery problem

The layers of mucus that protect sensitive tissue throughout the body have an undesirable side effect: they can also keep helpful medications away. To overcome this hurdle, Johns Hopkins researchers have found a way to coat nanoparticles with a chemical that helps them slip through this sticky barrier. During experiments with these coated particles, the researchers also discovered that...

Nanoparticles for delivery of prostate cancer treatment

Garen and his collaborator Zhiwei Hu have...

Protein found that slows hepatitis C growth in liver cells

Biomedical researchers have identified a cellular protein that interferes with hepatitis C virus replication, a finding that ultimately may help scientists develop new drugs to fight the virus. The anti-hepatitis C activity of the protein, called “p21-activated kinase 1?(PAK1), was discovered by scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB), who describe their fi...

Ultrathin films deliver DNA as possible gene therapy tool

Gene therapy - the idea of using genetic instructions rather than drugs to treat disease - has tickled scientists' imaginations for decades, but is not yet a viable therapeutic method. One sizeable hurdle is getting the right genes into the right place at the right time. Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are now developing a tool to tackle this problem. David M. Lynn and h...

Statin plus cancer drug deliver combo punch to brain cancer cells

Building on newly discovered genetic threads in the rich tapestry of biochemical signals that cause cancer, a Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center team has dramatically killed brain cancer cells by blocking those signals with a statin and an experimental antitumor drug. The unlikely pairing of cholesterol-lowering lovastatin and cyclopamine killed 63 percent of medulloblastoma cells grown in...

No carrier necessary: This drug delivers itself

The problem of efficiently delivering drugs, especially those that are hydrophobic or water-repellant, to tumors or other disease sites has long challenged scientists to develop innovative delivery systems that keep these drugs intact until reaching their targets. Now scientists in the University at Buffalo’s Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics and Roswell Park Cancer Institut...

Mailman School of Public Health researchers report blood DNA can be early predictor of liver cancer

Researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health have discovered a means for early detection of liver cancer. Using DNA isolated from serum samples as a baseline biomarker, the scientists examined changes in certain tumor suppressor genes that have been associated with the development of liver carcinomas. This is the first study to prospectively examine potential biomarkers f...

Liver regeneration may be simpler than previously thought

The way the liver renews itself may be simpler than what scientists had been assuming. A new study, appearing in the April 13 issue of The Journal of Biological Chemistry, provides new information on the inner workings of cells from regenerating livers that could significantly affect the way physicians make livers regrow in patients with liver diseases such as cirrhosis, hepatitis, or cancer. </p...

Penn researchers show how nanocylinders deliver medicine better than nanospheres

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine & School of Engineering and Applied Science have discovered a better way to deliver drugs to tumors. By using a cylindrical-shaped carrier they were able sustain delivery of the anticancer drug paclitaxel to an animal model of lung cancer ten times longer than that delivered on spherical-shaped carriers. These findings have impl...