Researchers have identified a new type of brain-wasting disease that resembles Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), a very rare and incurable degenerative brain disease that is ultimately fatal.

The U.S. National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH, said in a news release Wednesday that the new type of fatal dementia has been discovered in 16 Americans since 2002, 10 of whom have already died of the condition

Defective signalling of a chemical called serotonin in the brain may be at the root cause of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), Italian researchers have found.

Scientists from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Monterotondo, Italy, genetically modified lab mice to produce low levels of the brain-signalling protein serotonin. After being exposed to slight external temperature changes, the rodents suddenly died because their bodies could not adjust, researchers said

An experimental drug that inhibits tumor blood vessel formation can slow the progression of thyroid cancer in some patients, new research has found. The investigational drug, motesanib diphosphate has better response in those with a specific gene mutation in their tumors than in those without the mutation.

Researchers from the University of Texas treated 93 rapidly progressing cancer patients with motesanib diphosphate. Results showed that 49 patients had a positive response to treatment with the drug. Nearly 14 percent had their tumors shrink and 35 had their tumors stabilize for more than 24 weeks

The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute has awarded a nearly $5 million grant to the Johns Hopkins Children's Center for the establishment of a basic and translational research center that will consolidate research, treatment and care of adult and pediatric patients under one roof, speeding up the time between research and treatment.

"This center will be a marriage of all aspects of science and treatment, from basic science and clinical research to patient care and public health research, all part of the quest to treat and ultimately cure sickle cell disease," said lead investigator Dr. James F. Casella in a statement

First time parents should think twice about owning a cat if they have relatives with eczema, a skin disease, a new study finds. A gene mutation and exposure to cats at birth may increase a child's risk of developing eczema during their first year, researchers from the UK and Denmark say.

Other than environmental causes, eczema runs in families and is linked to functional faults in the gene that produces filaggrin (FLG), a protective protein in the skin. Having the mutant FLG gene increased the risk of eczema in a baby's first year twofold. Adding exposure to a cat quadrupled that risk, researchers say