Latest University of Melbourne Stories
A research team led by the University of Melbourne and Monash University has discovered why people can develop life-threatening allergies after receiving treatment for conditions such as epilepsy and AIDS. The finding could lead to the development of a diagnostic test to determine drug hypersensitivity. The study published today in the journal Nature, revealed how some drugs inadvertently target the immune system to alter how the body’s immune system perceives it’s own tissues,...
How well people with newly diagnosed epilepsy respond to their first drug treatment, may signal the likelihood that they will continue to have uncontrolled seizures according to University of Melbourne Chair of Neurology Professor Patrick Kwan. In a study published in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, Professor Kwan, who is also head of the clinical epilepsy program at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and an international authority in antiepileptic drug...
Researchers have found that bird species with multiple plumage color forms within in the same population, evolve into new species faster than those with only one color form, confirming a 60 year-old evolution theory. The global study used information from birdwatchers and geneticists accumulated over decades and was conducted by University of Melbourne scientists Dr Devi Stuart-Fox and Dr Andrew Hugall (now based at the Melbourne Museum) and is published in the journal Nature. The link...
An international team led by the University of Melbourne Australia, has found that increasing a specific protein in muscles could help treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a severe and progressive muscle wasting disease that affects young boys. Approximately one in every 3,500 boys worldwide is afflicted with DMD. There is no cure for the disease which causes muscle fragility, spinal curvature and premature death. Results from the studies published in Nature today showed that by...
An international team of researchers led by the University of Melbourne has used new technology to fast track the discovery of a breast cancer risk gene which could assist in the discovery of other cancer genes. Professor Melissa Southey of the Genetic Epidemiology Laboratory, Department of Pathology at the University of Melbourne, who led the study, said it was a significant discovery and the first breast cancer risk gene to be discovered using the latest genetic sequencing technology....
An international team of researchers led by the University of Melbourne has used new technology to fast track the discovery of a breast cancer risk gene and could assist in the discovery of other cancer genes. Professor Melissa Southey of the Genetic Epidemiology Laboratory, Department of Pathology at the University of Melbourne, who led the study, said it was a significant discovery and the first breast cancer risk gene to be discovered using the latest genetic sequencing technology....
A research team led by the University of Melbourne has developed a novel technique that tracks diseased proteins behaving badly by forming clusters in brain diseases such as Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s. The technique published in Nature Methods today is the first of its kind to rapidly identify and track the location of diseased proteins inside cells and could provide insights into improved treatments for brain diseases and others such as cancer. Developed by Dr Danny Hatters and...
People who take Ritalin are far more aware of their mistakes, a University of Melbourne study has found. The study, by Dr Rob Hester from the Department of Psychological Sciences and colleagues at the Queensland Brain Institute, investigated how the brain monitors ongoing behavior for performance errors – specifically failures of impulse control. It found that a single dose of methylphenidate (Ritalin) results in significantly greater activity in the brain’s error monitoring network...
Researchers from the University of Melbourne say $70 million could ‘close the gap’ on Indigenous eye health, which unlike other health conditions is preventable and treatable. Presently Indigenous Australians suffer six times the blindness of mainstream Australians and 94 percent of vision loss in Indigenous Australians is unnecessary, preventable or treatable. ‘The Roadmap to Close the Gap for Vision’ is the first comprehensive framework to ‘close the gap’ on Indigenous eye...
Researchers from the University of Melbourne report they have found that ant colonies share a collective memory for the odor of ants in rival nests. According to the new research, the ants use the information to identify the rival ants and compete, similar to how sports fans know each other by wearing their teams' colors. Study leader Professor Mark Elgar from the University's Department of Zoology said the ant colony's collective memory helps give an edge in a competitive world by...
