Hops, those little cone-shaped buds that give beer its bitter flavor, pack a surprisingly healthful punch. They are widely studied for their ability to halt bacterial growth and disease. Now, researchers report that they are close to synthesizing the healthful hops compounds in the lab.

Many Danes are prescribed NSAIDs for the treatment of painful conditions, fever and inflammation. But the treatment also comes with side effects, including the risk of ulcers and increased blood pressure. A major new study now gathers all research in the area. This shows that arthritis medicine is particularly dangerous for heart patients, and also that older types of arthritis medicine,

National Institutes of Health-funded scientists have developed a 3D micro-scaffold technology that promotes reprogramming of stem cells into neurons, and supports growth of neuronal connections capable of transmitting electrical signals. The injection of these networks of functioning human neural cells - compared to injecting individual cells - dramatically improved their survival following transplantation into mouse brains.

With the expiration in January of the patent on Gleevec, the drug that 15 years ago changed chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) from a death sentence to a treatable illness, insurance companies and patients have the opportunity to realize huge cost savings, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research suggests.

For decades, researchers have tried to duplicate the function of beta cells, the tiny insulin-producing entities that don't work properly in patients with diabetes. Insulin injections provide painful and often imperfect substitutes. Transplants of normal beta cells carry the risk of rejection or side effects from immunosuppressive therapies.

Millions of people today take statins to help lower their cholesterol level. Currently statins are prescribed to patients based on their future risk of cardiovascular disease - mainly driven by age - which excludes many individuals who may benefit from them. A new study led by the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) in Montreal, with collaborators from the United-States, is changing the way we think about prescribing statins.

Two widely used targeted therapy drugs approved by the FDA for the treatment of metastatic kidney cancer - sorafenib and sunitinib - are no more effective than a placebo in preventing return of the disease to increase life spans of patients suffering from advanced kidney cancer after surgery, according to a new multi-institutional study in the Lancet led by a researcher at the Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) of the University of Pennsylvania.