Research advances from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Intramural Research Program (IRP) often make headlines. Read the news releases that describe our most recent findings:
A new resource, Seeking Drug Abuse Treatment: Know What to Ask, will help individuals and families struggling with addiction ask the right questions before choosing a drug treatment program. It was developed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, and is available to the public free online or in hard copy through NIDA's DrugPubs service (see press release for more information).
More than 32 million people in the United States have autoantibodies, which are proteins made by the immune system that target the body’s tissues and define a condition known as autoimmunity, a study shows. The first nationally representative sample looking at the prevalence of the most common type of autoantibody, known as antinuclear antibodies (ANA), found that the frequency of ANA is highest among women, older individuals, and African-Americans. The study was conducted by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health. Researchers in Gainesville at the University of Florida also participated.
A new type of lab has been created to utilize near-atomic resolution microscopy and other structural biology technologies to help accelerate important medical discoveries relating to global health challenges, such as cancer and HIV/AIDS. The Living Lab Structural Biology Center was formed through a cooperative research and development agreement between the National Institutes of Health and FEI, Hillsboro, Ore., a scientific instruments company.
Since the discovery of the microscope, scientists have tried to visualize smaller and smaller structures to provide insights into the inner workings of human cells, bacteria and viruses. Now, researchers at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), part of the National Institutes of Health, have developed a new way to see structures within viruses that were not clearly seen before. Their findings are reported in the Jan. 13 issue of Science.
Children exposed to HIV before birth are at risk for language impairments, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions. Moreover, children exposed to HIV before birth may benefit from routine screening for language impairment, even if they don’t have any obvious signs of a language problem, the researchers said.
An experimental vaccine to prevent chikungunya fever, a viral disease spread by certain species of mosquitoes, is being tested in a clinical trial conducted by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) scientists at the National Institutes of Health. The vaccine was developed by researchers at the NIAID Vaccine Research Center (VRC) using non-infectious virus-like particles to prompt an immune response. The trial is testing the vaccine's safety and ability to elicit antibodies against chikungunya virus. It will enroll 25 healthy adults aged 18 to 50 years.
Recent findings in mice suggest that blocking the production of small molecules produced in the body, known as epoxyeicosatrienoic acids (EETs), may represent a novel strategy for treating cancer by eliminating the blood vessels that feed cancer tumors. This research is the first to show that EETs work in concert with vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), a protein known to induce blood vessel growth. Together, EETs and VEGF promote metastasis, or the spread of cancer, by encouraging the growth of blood vessels that supply nutrients to cancer cells.
The National Institutes of Health has launched the Transfer Agreement Dashboard, or TAD, to streamline the transfer of NIH-developed research materials to the biomedical research community.
An analysis of five previous studies has uncovered additional evidence of the effectiveness of progesterone, a naturally occurring hormone, in reducing the rate of preterm birth among a high-risk category of women.
The scientists suggest that some of the genetic changes that lead to MMD may also be responsible for the observed increase in cancer risk, but more research is needed to confirm this hypothesis. The study appeared Dec. 14, 2011, in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
