New Findings On Aging Pediatric Bruises Published By Notre Dame Researchers
A multi-university research group which includes several University of Notre Dame faculty and graduate students, has recently published a paper detailing new work on the analysis and dating of human bruises. The research, which is funded by the Gerber Foundation, will have particular application to pediatric medicine, as bruise age is often key evidence in child abuse cases. Using a combination of modeling and spectroscopy measurements, the researchers have advanced our understanding of the changing composition of aging bruises and developed new tools for detailed biomedical studies of human skin tissue.
All Itches Are Not Equal
New research from Gil Yosipovitch, M.D., Ph.D., professor of dermatology at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and a world-renowned itch expert, shows that how good scratching an itch feels is related to the itch's location. While previous studies by Yosipovitch have shown the pleasurability of itching, analysis of itch relief at different body sites and related pleasurability had not been performed until now. The study was published online this month by the British Journal of Dermatology. "The goal of this study was to examine the role of the pleasurability of scratching in providing relief for itch, " Yosipovitch explained.
A Plan To Effectively Treat Psoriasis
About 300 000 Swedes suffer from the difficult to treat disease, which manifests itself in scaly and often itchy patches on the skin. The reason is that cells divide without restraint as new blood vessels form in the deeper layers of the skin. An important component is the psoriasin protein (S100A7), which are abundant in psoriasis-affected skin but rarely in normal skin. The same protein is also assumed to be a factor in the development of breast cancer. The research team, led by associate professor Charlotta EnerbГ ck, have now illustrated that, in a study on cultured skin cells, the interaction between psoriasin, oxygen free radicals and vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGF) leads to significantly increased cell division and growth of new blood vessels (angiogenesis).