hopkins 2 1

Tag: "hopkins" at biology news

Hopkins AIDS experts issue warning about global efforts to provide drug therapies

Johns Hopkins infectious disease specialists who have spent more than two decades leading efforts to combat HIV and AIDS worldwide are warning that limited international relief supplies of antiretroviral therapies currently being distributed in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean will not get to those who can least afford to pay for them. . In an article appearing in the American Journal of Public Hea...

Hopkins scientists uncover 'tags' that force proteins to cell surface

Discovery likely to streamline drug and vaccine development .. . Because proteins on the cell surface are "lock-on" sites for drugs and other molecules, as well as triggers of immune re...

Johns Hopkins flu expert calls for mandatory vaccination of health care workers

Johns Hopkins' senior hospital epidemiologist and flu expert is calling for mandatory vaccination of all health care workers as the best means of protecting patients and hospital staff from widespread outbreaks of the viral illness. Studies by other United States researchers show that voluntary vaccination programs don't do the job and that each year, nearly 40,000 Americans die from influenza,...

Whole-genome study at Johns Hopkins reveals a new gene associated with abnormal heart rhythm

Using a new genomic strategy that has the power to survey the entire human genome and identify genes with common variants that contribute to complex diseases, researchers at Johns Hopkins, together with scientists from Munich, Germany, and the Framingham Heart Study, U.S.A., have identified a gene that may predispose some people to abnormal heart rhythms that lead to sudden cardiac death, a condi...

Hopkins researchers discover genetic switch that turns off an oxygen-poor cell's combustion engine

Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered a previously unrecognized role played by the gene HIF-1 as it helps cell survive when a lack of oxygen decreases production of an energy-rich molecule called ATP and increases production of toxic molecules. ATP supplies energy the cell needs to perform each of its many chemical reactions and tasks, and in this way acts as the "currency" for the cell's en...

Hopkins study suggests commercially available antibiotic may help fight dementia in HIV patients

An antibiotic commonly used to treat a variety of serious infections may also help prevent dementia in HIV patients, according to a test-tube study of human brain cells by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine neurologist Jeffrey Rumbaugh, M.D., Ph.D. . .. Rumbaugh added that, although ceftriaxone is FDA approved and could be used at any time by patients suffering from HIV dementia, there i...

Johns Hopkins lab scientists tame overactive CF protein

A team led by Johns Hopkins Children's Center scientists has identified and successfully tamed an overactive protein that plays a key role in cystic fibrosis (CF), a genetic disorder that interferes with the body's ability to transport chloride in and out of cells. . .. "The hope is that these findings will be used to design therapies and drugs that go beyond...

Johns hopkins researchers find link between cell's energy use and genome health

While studying how a cell keeps its genetic material intact, scientists at Johns Hopkins got busy alternately knocking out two catalysts vital to managing a yeast cell's energy. They discovered to their complete surprise that the removal of one of them led the cell to turn off 70 percent of its 5,000 genes and die. . .. The unexpect...

Hopkins researchers develop new tool to watch real-time chemical activity in cells

Attempts to identify potential drugs that interfere with the action of one particular enzyme linked to heart disease and similar health problems led scientists at Johns Hopkins to create a new tool and new experimental approach that allow them to see multiple, real-time chemical reactions in living cells. Their report on the work is published July 21 in the journal ACS Chemical Biology. . Most...

Hopkins scientists show hallucinogen in mushrooms creates universal 'mystical' experience

Using unusually rigorous scientific conditions and measures, Johns Hopkins researchers have shown that the active agent in "sacred mushrooms" can induce mystical/spiritual experiences descriptively identical to spontaneous ones people have reported for centuries. . .. The agent, a plant alkaloid called psilocybin, mimics the effect of serotonin on brain receptors-as do some other hallucinogens-...

Hopkins researchers discover how brain protein might control memory

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have figured out how one particular protein contributes to long-term memory and helps the brain remember things longer than an hour or two. The findings are reported in two papers in the Nov. 9 issue of Neuron. . .. "We think Arc controls how brain cells learn and associate behaviors and...

Hopkins scientists link immune response to 'ghost' parasites and severely congested sinuses

Although it's unclear why it's so, scientists at Johns Hopkins have linked a gene that allows for the chemical breakdown of the tough, protective casing that houses insects and worms to the severe congestion and polyp formation typical of chronic sinusitis. . A team of Hopkins sinus experts has found that the gene for the enzyme, acidic mammalian chitinase (AMCase), is up to 250 times more act...