UC Davis researchers move biotechnology closer to replacing electronic pacemakers
...e in clinics to destroy the heart cells that cause abnormal electrical discharges and rapid heart rates in their patients. To restore the SA node function and evaluate the bioengineered cells, Li's team then implanted electronic cardiac pacemakers like those used in humans and injected an adenovirus carrying ...MIT sheds light on how tumor cells form
... cells work to prevent cells from dividing with an abnormal number of chromosomes, but scientists have been puzzled by evidence that aneuploidy can result even when these proteins appear to be normal. What MIT researchers have discovered is a reason these checkpoint proteins may be unable to sense the defec...Matrilin-3 gene discovered to prevent onset of osteoarthritis
...lude malformation of the hands, feet and knees and abnormal curvature of the spine. In this study, researche...that the disease is caused by degeneration from an abnormal skeletal structure. "Our study shows that even in those normal looking skeletons, you still develo...Key stress protein linked to toxicities responsible for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's
...ative diseases and other disorders associated with abnormal protein accumulations due to cellular stress. "To our knowledge, this is the first published evidence of a link between protein misfolding due to enzymatic machinery malfunction found in a number of degenerative diseases and free radical stress in ...Key to early diagnosis of autism may be in the placenta
...ar genetic basis." Trophoblast inclusions reflect abnormal folding of microscopic layers in the placenta and appear to result from altered cell growth. Kliman likened the presence of trophoblast inclusions to an automobile check-engine-light. "When the light goes on it simply means that something is not righ...Mitochondrial DNA sequencing tool updated
...the chip, the bits with those changes would appear abnormal to the specially designed computer software programs that read the chip. The software programs will read not only the identity of the expected bases of DNA in a process called "base calling" but those of the variations. The Affymatrix chip enable...Brittle prions are more infectious
...n protein influences a normal protein to assume an abnormal shape. In mammalian prion infections, these abnormal shapes trigger protein clumping that can kill brain cells. In yeast cells, the insoluble prion prote...Inflammation and drugs to control this activity studied in a variety of tumors sites
...te tissue over a five-year period from men who had abnormal serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels and/o...veloping cancer based on either high PSA scores or abnormal DREs. Of the 177 men, 144 or 81 percent were found to have chronic prostate tissue inflammation. T...Wisconsin scientists grow two new stem cell lines in animal cell-free culture
... medium. Thomson says one of the new lines had an abnormal chromosome at four months, while the second line initially was normal but developed an abnormality by seven months. In addition to testing the new stem cell culture medium on new lines, Thomson's group successfully cultured four existing stem cell...Possible brain hormone may unlock mystery of hibernation
...ryosurgery, physicians use extreme cold to destroy abnormal tissue, such as cancerous tumors. ...Newly discovered killer cell fights cancer
...with a cancer drug called Gleevec, which blocks an abnormal protein produced by cancer cells, and a growth factor for NK cells. The drug-growth factor combo served as a lure, leading the IKDCs to tumors implanted in the mice. The results were that tumors shrunk in mice, which received injections of IKDCs, b...Stem cell transplants improve recovery in animal models for stroke, cerebral palsy
... shown to be safe, and do not form tumors or other abnormal tissue, a potential problem seen with embryonic stem cells. Furthermore, MultiStem TM cells generally do not require the close genetic matching between donor and recipient that is needed for a bone marrow or conventional stem cell transplant, accor...Engineered heart tissue offers insights into irregular heartbeats, defibrillator failure
... for whom defibrillators are more likely to worsen abnormal heart rate, Bursac said. So-called implantable c... of tachycardia. Such pacing usually overrides the abnormal heart waves to restore a normal rhythm, Bursac said. In 5 to 20 percent of cases, however, the anti...Scientists discover new genetic subtypes of common blood cancer
...form lacks these extra chromosomes and instead has abnormal rearrangements between different chromosomes, and the outlook is generally worse for these patients. The collaborating researchers sought to cast a wide net to capture as many of the genetic flaws in myeloma cells as possible, creating a comprehensi...Gene variation increases SIDS risk in African Americans
...n that increases an infant's risk of developing an abnormal heart rhythm during times of environmental stress,... gene called SCN5A, which has been associated with abnormal heart rhythms. Overall, the team found common and rare changes in this gene in five percent of SIDS ...Hap1 protein links circulating insulin to brain circuits that regulate feeding behavior in mice
...y manipulate it to treat disorders associated with abnormal energy balance in the brain." Stuart A. Lipton, MD, PhD, director and professor of the Center for Neuroscience and Aging at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in La Jolla, further stated, Òthe new work opens up additional targets for obesi...Fruit fly reveals a potential connection between dementia and cancer
...na and colleagues found that, as in human disease, abnormal expression of cell-cycle proteins accompanied neuronal death in their fly model. Most importantly, loss of neurons could be prevented when the cell cycle was genetically blocked or when flies were fed anticancer drugs. Cell-cycle activation depended ...How can we protect patients with weakened immune systems from influenza?
...uffers from autoimmune diseases, those in which an abnormal immune system turns on itself: systemic lupus erythematosus and Sjogren's syndrome. Core research facilities will assist all the projects in systematically measuring T cell and B cell counts and developing specialized assays. The researchers will be...St. Jude projects 90 percent cure rate for ALL
...ality called the TEL-AML1 fusion gene, which is an abnormal combination of two separate genes, confers a relat... researchers developed a technique for identifying abnormal combinations of proteins that appear only on the surface of leukemic cells. This allows scientists t......eviously discovered that Alzheimer's patients have abnormal amounts of heme in their brains. In new research results, Atamna's team showed that amyloid-beta readily binds with heme to form a compound that can be flushed from cells. When there is insufficient heme or too much amyloid-beta, however, the amyloid...