University of Alcalá

December 9th, 2024 We are delighted to announce that Dr Alfredo Carrato Mena, MD, PhD, has joined our Scientific Board! Dr Carrato is a globally recognized leader in oncology, currently serving as Chairman of Pancreatic Cancer Europe, Director of the Translational Research Group at IRYCIS, and Director of IRYCIS Group within the Spanish Network for Cancer Research (CIBERONC). He is also Director of International Relations at the ECO Foundation and Emeritus Professor of Oncology at the University of Alcalá. Throughout his remarkable career, Dr Carrato has held pivotal leadership roles, including President of SEOM (Spanish Society of Medical Oncology) and ASEICA (Spanish Association for Cancer Research). With over 380 peer-reviewed publications and an H-index of 73, his research spans molecular epidemiology, immunotherapy, and gastrointestinal cancer, with a focus on pancreatic and urothelial tumors. We are honored to welcome Dr Carrato’s vast expertise and leadership to our Scientific Board, confident his contributions will drive new milestones in oncology.

FRIDAY, June 28, 2024 -- Scientists have documented the first case of Down syndrome in Neanderthals, a finding which also supports the notion that these cousins of modern man were capable of providing care and support to a vulnerable member of their group. “The results have significant implications for our understanding of Neanderthal behavior,” said researcher Rolf Quam , a professor of anthropology at Binghamton University in New York. The study, published June 26 in the journal Science Advances , involves the skeletal remains of a Neanderthal child that researchers affectionately named “Tina.” Tina was found at Cova Negra, a cave in Valencia, Spain, long known for yielding important Neanderthal discoveries. CT scans of Tina’s skull revealed that she suffered from a deformity of the inner ear associated with Down syndrome. It would have produced severe hearing loss and disabling vertigo. Nevertheless, Tina survived to at least 6 years old, researchers noted. To do that, she would have needed extensive care from those around her, researchers said. It’s been known for decades that Neanderthals cared for disabled individuals. However, all known cases to date involved adults, leading some to argue these represent a reciprocal exchange of help between equals rather than truly altruistic behavior. "What was not known until now was any case of an individual who had received help, even if they could not return the favor, which would prove the existence of true altruism among Neanderthals. That is precisely what the discovery of 'Tina' means,” said lead researcher Mercedes Conde , a professor at the University of Alcalá in Spain. Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.

Do you celebrate your birthday in the same month as your mum?  If so, you are not alone. The phenomenon occurs more commonly than expected -- a new study of millions of families has revealed.  Do you celebrate your birthday in the same month as your mum? If so, you are not alone. The phenomenon occurs more commonly than expected -- a new study of millions of families has revealed. Siblings also tend to share month of birth with each other, as do children and fathers, the analysis of 12 years' worth of data shows, whilst parents are also born in the same month as one another more often than would be predicted. Previous research has found that women's season of birth somehow influences that of their children. But this research, published today in the peer-reviewed journal Population Studies, is the first to show that women are more likely to have children in the same month as their own birth. The researchers from Spain and the US analyzed official data on more than 10 million births. They looked all births in Spain from 1980 to 1983 and from 2016 to 2019 and all births in France from 2000 to 2003 and from 2010 to 2013. The records provided the child's month of birth, as well as those of their parents and the sibling that was closest to them in age. Births in a particular country tend to follow a pattern, with more babies being born at certain times of the year than at others. This is known in academic literature as birth seasonality. But when the researchers divided the birth data into groups based on the month of birth of the mothers, the births didn't follow the expected pattern. Instead, there was a spike in January births among the mothers who were born in January, a spike in February babies in the mothers who were born in February and so on. Overall, there were 4.6% more births in which mother and child shared the same birth month than would be expected. This was true for both countries and all four time periods studied. It was also the case for siblings (there were 12.1% more births than expected in which adjacent siblings had the same month of birth), parents with the same month of birth (4.4% more births) and when a child had the same birth month as their father (2% more births). A second, less detailed, analysis of all the births in Spain from 1980 to 2019 and all births in France from 2000 to 2019, confirmed the result. The phenomenon likely has its roots in relatives sharing socio-demographic characteristics: people of similar backgrounds are known to pair up and to be more likely to give birth at certain times of the year, say researchers Dr. Adela Recio Alcaide, of the University of Alcalá in Spain, and Professor Luisa N. Borrell, of the City University of New York in the United States. In Spain, for example, a woman with a higher education is more likely to give birth in the spring than woman without a higher education. If she has a daughter, in addition to being more likely to be born in the spring, this daughter may be more likely to have higher education, since her mother has it. And thus, when this daughter has children, she will be more likely to have them in the spring too. That is, this daughter will be more likely to have children in the same season in which she was born because she has kept her family sociodemographic characteristics -- specifically the higher education- which make her more likely to give birth at a given time -- spring -- and, as a result, the season -- and even month -- of birth is passed between the generations. Factors that can affect the biology of fertility, such as availability of food and exposure to sunlight, can also vary according to a person's background. "What could cause the higher probabilities of family members being born in the same season? The potential explanations seem to be both social and biological," states Dr. Adela Recio Alcaide, an epidemiologist at the University of Alcala. "The excess of children with a father and mother born in the same month seems to be due to social or behavioral causes prior to conception that relate to the choice of a partner born in the same month, as we have observed this excess with marriage statistics, with spouses being more likely to mate with someone from the same month." "This," adds co-author Professor Luisa Borrell, from The City University of New York, "may not be surprising considering things such as partnerships tend to be formed by people with similar socio-demographic characteristics." "Moreover, biological factors that are known to affect birth seasonality -- such as photoperiod exposure, temperature, humidity, and availability of food -- also depend on socio-demographic characteristics, since different social groups are exposed to these biological factors to varying degrees," Professor Borrell, a social epidemiologist at the City University's Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy, says. The study's strengths include the large number of births included in the analysis and the inclusion of data from different decades and different countries. However, one limitation is that the analysis assumes an "independence of outcomes but that might not be the case and, therefore, dependence of the outcomes within families may have affected findings." To adjust for this, the team repeated their analyses to account for dependency of outcomes within families and the results were very similar to those presented. While this is a novel finding, further research is needed to confirm and deepen the results and their implications. Concluding, the authors outline the importance that the link between family characteristics and birth month is considered in any future research into how a child's month of birth affects their health, educational and other outcomes.