Tag Health & medicine
Research may yield improved treatment for diseased lungs
A multi-institutional team of engineers, scientists and clinicians from the University of Wisconsin–Madison will study large-artery biomechanics that could play a role in heart failure in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension.
Research aims to make it easier to serve local produce as classroom snacks
Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch, a partnership between a UW–Madison center and a local nonprofit organization, is working to introduce locally grown products into elementary schools around the area.
Decoding protein structures helps illuminate cause of diabetes
Any photographer can vouch for the difficulty of capturing a clear picture of a moving target. When it comes to molecules, however, sometimes the motion is exactly what scientists want to see.
Book explores history, causes of allergy and asthma epidemic
Why is it that actions we think will improve a situation more often than not make it worse?
Meditation may fine-tune control over attention
Everyday experience and psychology research both indicate that paying close attention to one thing can keep you from noticing something else.
Food science students get taste of big leagues with Miller Park internship
It's a Milwaukee Brewers fan's dream: Spend the summer at Miller Park, get paid to do it, and get some resume-building professional experience to boot. This month, UW–Madison seniors Maureen Riley and Hannah Buchen begin summer internships with Milwaukee Sportservice, the company that provides food, beverage and retail services to Milwaukee's Miller Park.
UW study tests topical honey as a treatment for diabetic ulcers
Jennifer Eddy, a physician at UW Health’s Eau Claire Family Medicine Clinic and an assistant professor of family medicine at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, is conducting the first randomized, double-blind controlled trial of honey for diabetic ulcers.
Study puts us one step closer to understanding the function of sleep
Sleep remains one of the big mysteries in biology. All animals sleep, and people who are deprived of sleep suffer physically, emotionally and intellectually. But nobody knows how sleep restores the brain.
Arming the fight against resistant bacteria
In 1928, Alexander Fleming opened the door to treating bacterial infections when he stumbled upon the first known antibiotic in a Penicillium mold growing in a discarded experiment.
Fishing for new anti-inflammatory, cancer drugs
Though cell movement and migration in the body play a central role in mediating injury and disease, including inflammatory responses and cancer metastasis, drugs designed to stifle cells’ nomadic tendencies are scarce. A new interdisciplinary research project funded by the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery seed grant program seeks to develop a novel drug-discovery process that may start to fill this gap.
Researchers seek early detection for hard-to-diagnose disease
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is characterized by infertility due to anovulation, abnormal secretion of androgens and other hormones, and insulin resistance. PCOS is the most common female endocrine disorder, affecting 4-7 percent of women in their reproductive years — the syndrome accounts for 75 percent of all anovulations. PCOS has staggering adverse physiological, psychological and financial consequences for women’s reproductive health.
In quest for less risky drugs, scientists listen to neurons
Since the 1950s, doctors have been ordering medications such as Ritalin to ease symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and prescriptions now number in the millions. Still, though highly effective, so-called “psychostimulant” drugs are not without risks, leaving many seeking safer alternatives, especially for children.
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.
Breaching a gateway to the cell, drug discovery
With support from the Discovery Seed Grant Program, Wisconsin scientists are poised to bring a novel approach to finding new medicines by deploying the atomic force microscope — the foremost tool of the nanotechnologist — to screen agents as they dock with critical cell receptors.
Nanoscale packaging could aid delivery of cancer-fighting drugs
A University of Wisconsin–Madison pharmacy professor aims to improve the delivery of cancer-fighting drugs by targeting them more selectively to tumors and boosting their solubility in water.
Fragile X protein may play role in Alzheimer’s disease
A brain afflicted by severe Alzheimer's disease is a sad sight, a wreck of tangled neural connections and organic rubble as the lingering evidence of a fierce internal battle. A new study has now uncovered an unexpected link between this devastating neural degeneration and a protein whose absence causes a different neurological disease - the inherited mental retardation disorder called fragile X syndrome.
Dieting meets DNA: Nutrition gets personal in new studies
Ushering nutritional science into the biotech age, UW–Madison researchers are exploring the complex interactions between food and genes to uncover new modes of disease prevention, drug development and, eventually, personalized diet advice tailored to one’s DNA.