Tag: "overactive" at biology news

New compound prevents alcoholic behavior, relapse in animals by blocking stress response

...o. The new study shows that the CRF system becomes overactive in the long term in animals with a history of alcohol dependence, increasing the risk for relapse. Heilig and his team showed that MTIP blocked the activity of CRF in stressful situations without affecting its activity under ordinary circumstance...

RNAi shows promise in gene therapy, Stanford researcher says

...ed as gene therapy, RNAi turns off genes that are overactive in such diseases as cancer or macular degeneration, or disables genes needed by an invading virus. With key genes shut off, viruses such as hepatitis or HIV are unable to multiply and cause disease. In early RNAi experiments, researchers saw so...

MIT: Pulsing light silences overactive neurons

...ctric jolt, acting as a defibrillator to shut down overactive neurons. This new research opens up the possibility of an optical implant that could do the same thing, using light instead of electricity. The Media Lab neuroengineering group plans to start studying such devices in transgenic mice this year. The...

Lost in the labyrinth

...her blood cells form or not. On the other hand, an overactive Wingless pathway doesn't seem to damage cells that already exist. Thus beta-catenin seems to be a decision-maker, a selector of how information gets routed within the cell, rather than something which maintains the vitality of existing cells. Nerlo...

New brain-chemistry differences found in depressed women

...searchers also found that the mu-opioid system was overactive in women with depression, even at baseline, when they weren't being asked to recall sad memories. During the "sadness challenge", the non-depressed women did not show any activation of their mu-opioid system, but the depressed women had a signifi...

Study of gene transfer for erectile dysfunction shows promise

...ts the potential for using the technology to treat overactive bladder, irritable bowel syndrome and asthma, according to the researchers. "In the small pilot study, this new therapy was well tolerated and safe," said George Christ, Ph.D., senior researcher and a professor at the Institute for Regenerative Medi...

Scientists use gene signatures to match cancer and other diseases with potentially effective drugs

...a molecule called HSPH90, which in turn blocks the overactive cell signaling of the androgen receptor in prostate cancer cells that drives their aggressive growth. Dana-Farber researcher Haley Hieronymus, PhD, who used the Connectivity Map to sift through thousands of drugs and compounds, is the paper's lead au...

Mouse study reveals new clues about virulence of 1918 influenza virus

...at moderating or halting the human immune system's overactive response to these viruses. ...

Wild vs. lab rodent comparison supports hygiene hypothesis

... form of autoimmune disorder, which occurs when an overactive immune system attacks tissues in the body. Examples of autoimmune disorders include lupus, insulin-dependant diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and scleroderma. "The most commonly accepted explanation for this high incidence of allergy and perhaps autoi...

For Stanford scientists, RNAi gene therapy takes two steps forward, one step back

...ces a molecule called an shRNA, which turns off an overactive gene. With key genes shut off, viruses such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C or HIV are unable to multiply and cause disease. However, some reports had suggested that RNAi gene therapy might induce an immune reaction or switch off the wrong gene or genes...

Johns Hopkins lab scientists tame overactive CF protein

...cientists has identified and successfully tamed an overactive protein that plays a key role in cystic fibrosis (...issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. The overactive protein, called VCP/pr 97 (valosin containing protein), kills a chloride transporter in the cells of...

Insects and mammals share common fat-building pathway, study suggests

...lies in which the Hh pathway in the fat bodies was overactive gained less fat than normal. Conversely, treatments that blocked the action of the Hh pathway led to an increase in the insects' fat stores. To see whether the same pattern might hold in mammals, the team then looked to the mouse. The animals' fat ...

New cellular flaw found in some virulent breast cancers

...st cancers composed of cells that contain both the overactive cyclin D1-CDK4 switch and a mutated cancer-causing...test women's breast tumors for the presence of the overactive kinase, and then treat those patients with the inhibitor. "We are going to see in the next five year...

Infection 'alarm' yields clues to immune system behavior

...ppress the immune system, the researchers said. An overactive immune system, for example, can set off the excessive inflammation associated with rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. In addition, some cancers are more likely to grow where inflammation occurs. These ailments might be helped by a drug that curbs inflam...

Molecular trigger for Huntington's disease found

...tients could be caused by the protective effect of overactive p53. In the July 7, 2005, issue of Neuron, Akira Sawa and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine reported experiments ranging from molecular studies in cultured brain cells to analysis of the brains of human HD patients that demon...

How HIV disables the cells' call for help

...mans can adopt the virus peptide to better control overactive autoimmunity." Prof. Irun Cohen's research is supported by the Minna James Heineman Stiftung; the Robert Koch Minerva Center for Research in Autoimmune Disease; and Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Theodore Cohen, Chicago, IL. Prof. Cohen is the incumbent of th...

Two designer drugs hit same lung cancer target, but only one is effective

...est comparing their ability to shut down a mutant, overactive growth signal in lung cancer cells, reports a team...gh both drugs killed cells containing a normal but overactive EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor) molecule, only gefitinib (Iressa) killed lung cancer cells c...

Once given 'no respect,' cells' tiny RNAS take driver's seat

... are used to make proteins. Myc also is faulty and overactive in many human cancer cells, although exactly how it contributes to cancer is unclear. Given Myc's regulatory role and its involvement in cancer, the Hopkins researchers tested human cells to see whether changes in the amount of Myc affected levels o...

Function of new cancer genes discovered

... is a cellular communications system which becomes overactive if the CYLD protein is mutated. This results in increased cell growth and the occurrence of tumours. An important implication of this research is that inhibition of the NF-kappa B route in cylindromatosis patients could be an adequate form of treatm...

One gene links newborn neurons with those that die in diseases such as Alzheimer's

...from the zebra finch. They expected to find a few overactive genes in the replaceable neurons. But instead, one gene turned up in consistently low levels. The gene was UCHL1. "We expected UCHL1 would be high in all kinds of neurons," says first author Anthony Lombardino, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in Notte...

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