Summary: Roflumilast, a drug commonly prescribed for the treatment of COPD and asthma helps retrieve learning memories following a period of sleep deprivation in mice.

Source: University of Groningen.

Students sometimes pull an all-nighter to prepare for an exam. However, research has shown that sleep deprivation is bad for your memory.

A protein that helps lethal skin cancer spread through the body has been identified, according to scientists, offering new hope for cancer treatment. Protein LAP1 allows cancer cells to become more aggressive by letting them change the shape of their nucleus and migrate around the body. The most serious type of cancer cells, melanoma, was found to harbour LAP1 and high levels of it were linked to poor prognosis.

A type of freshwater plankton has become the first organism seen thriving on a diet of viruses, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the US.

Viruses are often consumed incidentally by a range wide of organisms, and may even season the diets of certain marine protists. But to qualify as a true step in the food chain – described as virovory – viruses ought to contribute a significant amount of energy or nutrients to their consumer.

The microbe Halteria is a common genus of protist known to flit about as its hair-like cilia propel it through the water. Not only did laboratory samples of the ciliate consume chloroviruses added to its environment, the giant virus fueled Halteria’s growth and increased its population size.

Point-of-care diagnoses occur when a doctor can quickly diagnose a patient during an examination without sending biological samples to a laboratory or consulting with other specialists. The stress and anxiety that can come with waiting for the results of medical testing, and the cost associated with in-depth laboratory testing, make point-of-care testing a gold standard. However, point-of-care diagnostics remain rare in oncology.

Research shows that women suspected of endometrial cancer experience stress and anxiety while waiting for a confirmed diagnosis. While the procedures and waiting time associated with endometrial cancer diagnoses vary, endometrial biopsies can take weeks to return results. Of added concern, since most endometrial cancers require surgical intervention, usually a hysterectomy, delays in diagnosis lead to delays in treatment. Indeed, these surgical delays can negatively impact survival. Thus, rapid endometrial cancer diagnostic strategies would significantly improve patient care.

To address the need for new, more efficient endometrial cancer diagnostics, a group of researchers initiated a study to assess the ability of an intelligent knife (iKnife) to identify malignancy in endometrial tissue biopsies. The researchers published the results of the study in the journal Cancers.