People at genetic risk for Alzheimer’s age mentally just like noncarriers

WASHINGTON — Australian researchers say that a genotype that heightens the risk for Alzheimer’s disease does not contribute to cognitive change during most of adulthood. The largest study of its kind has found that carriers and non-carriers show the same type and extent of normal age-related cognitive declines, decades before carriers start to more often develop symptoms of dementia. The findings suggest that the higher-risk genotype acts only in later years to layer disease on top of normal aging.

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments off

New HIV test may predict drug resistance

DURHAM, N.C. — Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have developed a highly sensitive test for identifying which drug-resistant strains of HIV are harbored in a patient’s bloodstream.

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments off

Scientists discover new, readily available source of stem cells

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Scientists have discovered a new source of stems cells and have used them to create muscle, bone, fat, blood vessel, nerve and liver cells in the laboratory. The first report showing the isolation of broad potential stem cells from the amniotic fluid that surrounds developing embryos was published today in Nature Biotechnology.

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments off