heel in Biological News

One of the Largest Wendy's(R) Franchisees, Tar Heel Capital, Reduces Fraud and Slashes Costs with DigitalPersona

... the largest Wendy's restaurant franchisee, Tar heel Capital, has chosen DigitalPersona U.are.U Fingerprint Readers to combat theft. Tar heel Capital, which owns 76 Wendy's franchise ... (POS) software on their POS terminals. Tar heel Capital saw a rapid return on investment in each ...

Running on rocket fuel

... This great strategy, however, has an Achilles heel as packs fewer than five are less effective ... babies, this study highlighted an Achilles heel where energetic poverty translated into ... by sociality can be undermined by an Achilles heel that can push species into extinction. Professor ...

UT pathologists believe they have pinpointed Achilles heel of HIV

... Houston believe they have uncovered the Achilles heel in the armor of the virus that continues to kill ... known as abzymes, which can attack the Achilles heel of the virus in a precise way. "The abzymes ... patients can generate abzymes to the Achilles heel of HIV. The human genome has accumulated over ...

Huntington's disease deciphered

... in several other hereditary adult-onset neurodegenerative diseases and to Alzheimer's disease. "There is a common theme and a common Achilles heel of the neuron that underlies all these diseases," Brady said. "We've invented a word, dysferopathy, (from the Greek 'fero', to carry or transport) ...

Aussie meat ants may be invasive cane toad's Achilles' heel

... more vigilant for meat ants than cane toads, they discovered. The results are interesting not only because they reveal the cane toad's Achilles' heel a weakness that could be exploited to help control the spread of the toxic toad but because the same "evolutionary trap" could be used to snare ...

'A dinosaur dance floor'

... rock bed. Four different kinds of footprint shapes are seen repeatedly in 14 percent of the impressions, and they include obvious claw, toe and heel marks. The other impressions "are clearly similar." One-third of the prints are surrounded by small ridges or mounds. Such features would be ...

Tuberculosis drug shows promise against latent bacteria

... physiologically "turned off", still need to produce small quantities of ATP to survive. As such, a block in ATP synthesis might be an Achilles heel for killing dormant bacteria. This reasoning proved to be correct and R207190 was able to kill dormant bacteria by greater than 95% whereas ...

Duke-NIEHS team shows how DNA repairs may reshape the genome

... 3 percent of the genome. In higher species, like humans, about half of the genome consists of these repeated sequences, "which makes for an Achilles heel among humans," Argueso said. "If you have a break in this repeated part, you can repair not only from the same chromosome, but also from a similar ...

Low-gravity training machine reduces joint, muscle impacts, says CU-Boulder study

... in the G-Trainer at about 10 feet per second, for example -- the equivalent of a seven-minute mile -- decreased the "peak" force resulting from heel impact by 44 percent, said Grabowski. That is important, she said, because each foot impact at high speed can jar the body with a force equal to ...

Human vascular system in mice

... The formation of new blood vessels, or angiogenesis, is an Achilles heel of tumor growth, because tumors depend on the supply of oxygen and nutrients for survival. Therefore, for some years now substances called ...

Pitt and University of Chicago researchers uncover process behind heart muscle contraction

... perturbation does not require greater mobilization of calcium, so we wont end up with increased cardiac energy consumption. Thats been the Achilles heel of treatment so far. The teams next step involves examining HAT- and HDAC-driven regulation of cardiac contraction in the whole animal rather than ...

International scientists tackle obstacles to treating brain disorders

... community studying the blood-brain barrier. Neuwelt also was a major participant in the review. The blood-brain barrier is the Achilles heel for treating virtually all neurological disorders, said Neuwelt, director of OHSUs Blood-Brain Barrier Program. However, like the Great Wall of ...

Yale receives $8.4 million to study DNA repair in cancer cells

... We have put together a program to target protein and DNA repair enzymes that fix the DNA, Glazer said. We feel this could create an Achilles heel for cancer cells that would make them more vulnerable to traditional cancer therapies. Cancer therapies such as radiation and chemotherapy work ...

Genomic Analysis Uncovers New Targets for HIV Vaccine

... at least HLA-C is involved in controlling HIV-1. Since HIV-1 appears unable to shut off HLA-C, unlike A and B, HLA-C may represent an Achilles heel of HIV, according to Goldstein, who said that a vaccine could be designed to elicit an HLA-C mediated response which HIV-1 might be unable to defuse. ...

Smokers quit after damage to brain region

... smoking, demonstrates a powerful link between habit and emotion or feeling," she said. The finding that one small region could be the Achilles' heel of smoking addiction is especially surprising, given the brain-wide effects of nicotine on the nervous system. The study considered smokers with ...

Natural anti-viral enzyme helps keep cancer cells alive, researchers find

... involved in immune response," said Dr. Michael White, associate professor of cell biology. "We found something a little bit different ?an Achilles' heel of cancer cells that's apparently broadly conserved among many types of solid tumors." Using cultured human cells, the researchers set out to ...

Attacking cancer's sweet tooth is effective strategy against tumors

... Fantin, Julie St-Pierre, and Philip Leder appear in the June Cancer Cell. "This is an exciting contribution that reveals a surprising Achilles heel in cancer cells. It also adds to our sense of opportunity for new avenues of cancer therapeutics," said Stuart Schrieber, Morris Loeb professor and ...

Federal grant funds research on novel HIV therapy

... Encompassing basic science research, animal studies and clinical trials in adult patients, the new grant focuses on a potential Achilles' heel in the human immunodeficiency virus: sites on immune cells known as neurokinin-1 receptors. In focusing on those sites, researchers hope to achieve a ...

'Cookbook recipes' would cure disease with nontoxic DNA delivery systems

... but delivering DNA to the proper location and getting the right amount of DNA expression without killing innocent cells has become the Achilles' heel in DNA delivery. Positively charged (cationic) synthetic molecules will readily bond to negatively charged DNA molecules and have been used for ...

Achilles heel of the herpes virus possibly found

... express the gene for the B5 receptor, this may be a reason HSV can get into most kinds of cells. "This may be one central part of the Achilles' heel in interactions of herpes virus with a cell to start infection. We can use the receptor molecule to try to understand the process and perhaps combat ...

Ancient immune defense mechanism is no match for HIV-1

... of RNAi. "Because HIV-1 evades all other RNAi by point mutations, we reason that its requirement for an SRS is solely to shield this last 'Achilles' heel that we think HIV-1 cannot alter for functional reasons. The sequence we describe may represent a viable target for RNAi that HIV-1 cannot elude by ...

Unchecked DNA replication drives earliest steps toward cancer

... diagnostic tool to identify precancerous cells. "The presence of DNA breaks in precancerous and cancer cells may turn out to be the Achilles heel of cancer," Halazonetis says. "It might be possible to inhibit repair of these DNA breaks, in which case the cancer cells would die." The lead ...