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Borrowing and sharing of prescription medications is a serious medical and public health concern. A survey of nearly 7,500 women of reproductive age found that this is common practice among more than one-third of this population, according to a new report.

Low levels of LDL cholesterol as well as high levels are associated with cancer in patients with type 2 diabetes, found a prospective cohort study published in CMAJ.

Researchers have reported a discovery that could help scientists develop drugs to fight the much-feared bird flu and other virulent strains of influenza. They have determined the three-dimensional structure of a site on an influenza A virus protein that binds to one of its human protein targets, thereby suppressing a person's natural defenses to the infection and paving the way for the virus to replicate efficiently.

Researchers have identified an enzyme called Brk as a target for future drugs to fight a virulent subset of cancers overexpressing a protein called ErbB2 -- also often called HER2 -- which drives tumor cells to proliferate unchecked. Brk, they report, helps these tumors become virulent and is also implicated in the process through which the tumors develop drug resistance to "targeted" therapies Herceptin and Lapatinib.

Leaky, twisted blood vessels in tumors often prevent chemotherapy drugs from reaching their target. Children's Hospital Boston researchers have found that tumor capillary cells, unlike their normal counterparts, are hyper-contractile and respond abnormally to physical and mechanical cues, producing irregularly-shaped capillaries and creating gaps between cells that caused vessel leakiness. A protein called Rho-associated kinase is the likely culprit; inhibiting its function normalized the tumor cells' mechanical responsiveness, as well as blood vessel architecture.

It may take just one or two proteins to polish off a simple cellular task, but life-or-death matters, such as caring for the ends of chromosomes known as telomeres, require interacting crews of proteins, all with a common goal but each with a specialized task.

A newly developed ethanol-based hand sanitizer may significantly impact public health by minimizing the transmission of multiple viruses, including norovirus, from food handlers and care providers.

Previously unrecognized and unidentified infections of amniotic fluid may be a significant cause of premature birth, according to researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

California's state tobacco control program saved $86 billion -- in 2004 dollars -- in personal healthcare costs in its first 15 years, according to a study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco.

Researchers have discovered eating broccoli could undo the damage caused by diabetes to heart blood vessels.