Monthly Archives: March 2012

In 2010, Hanyia Naqvi was working on a Yale School of Medicine project to study the effects of cell phone radiation on brain growth. The researchers taped old flip phones to the sides of cages with pregnant mice inside. The phones fascinated the mice, remembered Naqvi, a master's degree candidate at Southern Connecticut State University. "Some mice would just come and sit there," she said. Two years later, the data from the study, finally published, reveals that pregnant women should be wary of spending any unnecessary time with their phones. Hugh Taylor '83, one of the authors of the study, said his team exposed the unborn mice to radiation from phone signals constantly until their birth, a total of about 19 days. The pups later showed subtle but consistent differences in behavior, and samples of their brain tissue responded differently in electrical experiments. Taylor and the other authors stressed that their findings, published online in Scientific Reports on March 15, may not apply to humans. But as a simple precaution, Taylor suggested that pregnant women keep their phones away from their bodies as much as possible. This study adds to concern among scientists about a number of suspected health consequences … Continue reading →

Editor's Choice Academic Journal Main Category: Blood / Hematology Article Date: 27 Mar 2012 - 6:00 PDT email to a friend printer friendly opinions Current Article Ratings: According to the 20-member panel of experts, in many settings patients are receiving unnecessary transfusions in the United States. Jeffery L. Carson, M.D., Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ, and lead author of the guideline, explained: In order to determine the best use of red blood cells to maximize clinical outcomes and to prevent the harms and costs of unnecessary transfusions, the team of researchers based their evaluation on a systematic review of studies published from 1950 to 2011. To determine the impact of restrictive transfusion strategies on red blood cell usage, the team analyzed the ratio of individuals who underwent any red cell transfusion. In addition, they also determined the clinical outcome of a restrictive strategy by analyzing overall cardiac events, mortality, non-fatal heart attack, stroke, pulmonary edema, renal failure, thromboembolism, hemorrhage, length of hospitalization, functional recovery, infection, and mental confusion. For patients with pre-existing heart disease, they recommend sticking to a restrictive transfusion strategy, while patients with symptoms of anemia … Continue reading →

Blocking "don't destroy me" signals that normally sit on the surface of tumor cells and render them resistant to immune-cell attack slows the growth of a broad range of human cancers when they're implanted in mice, researchers have found. The approach, reported by immunologists at the Stanford University School of Medicine, was effective against ovarian, breast, colon, bladder, liver, prostate and brain cancer cells. If the work can be repeated in people, the approach may someday help doctors marshal defender cells in patients' own bodies to fight cancers, the researchers said. Key to the work is a cell protein called CD47, which is already being investigated in the treatment of leukemia. CD47 sits on cell membranes and communicates with various immune cells, including macrophages, which gobble up foreign invaders in the body. It plays an important role in the normal life cycle of healthy red blood cells, telling macrophages to leave the cells alone. In the study, the scientists injected the animals with antibodies that bind to CD47 and block out its protective signal. "If we can block this signal, we can get the immune system to eat [the cancer cells] up," said Stephen Willingham, a postdoctoral researcher in the … Continue reading →