News by Subject Medicine & Health

Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) scientists are working on a promising approach for treatment of chronic kidney disease - regeneration of damaged tissues using therapeutic cells.

The liver is the only organ in the body that can regenerate. But some patients who undergo a liver resection, a surgery that removes a diseased portion of the organ, end up needing a transplant because the renewal process doesn't work. A new Michigan State University study, published in the journal Blood, shows that the blood-clotting protein fibrinogen may hold the key as to why this happens.

Kidney transplant recipients under 65 years of age qualify for Medicare coverage following transplantation, but coverage ends after three years. A new American Journal of Transplantation study found that failure of the transplanted kidney was 990 percent to 1,630 percent higher for recipients who lost Medicare coverage before this three-year time point compared with recipients who lost Medicare on time.

A second person has experienced sustained remission from HIV-1 after ceasing treatment, reports a paper led by researchers at UCL and Imperial College London. The case report, published in Nature and carried out with partners at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, comes ten years after the first such case, known as the 'Berlin Patient.'

A nationwide consortium of researchers has identified the first genetic defect linked to biliary atresia, a mysterious liver disease that is the leading cause for liver transplantation in children.

New research from the NIHR Guy's and St Thomas' Biomedical Research Centre has found a way to predict rejection of a kidney transplant before it happens, by monitoring the immune system of transplant patients.

A study led by researchers at RCSI (Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland) has analysed the pattern of skin cancer rates in kidney transplant patients, which suggests the increased risk is related to the anti-rejection medications.

In a study published in the prestigious scientific journal, Nature, a team of researchers from the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, University of California, and University of Sydney, have discovered biomarkers in the blood that can predict the accumulation of toxic fats in the liver, which are a sign of early fatty liver disease.