BEC

Tiny scaffolding allows stem cells to become working fat cells

Researchers here have used a new microscopic, three-dimensional scaffolding to coax mouse stem cells to transform themselves into fat cells, and then to function identical to how fat cells naturally do in the body. While other studies have previously grown fat cells, or adipocytes, in the laboratory, those cells never completely functioned in the same way they do in normal tissue. They fai...

South America's vast pantanal wetland may become next everglades, UNU experts warn

South America's giant Pantanal wetlands, one of the world's most bio-diverse ecosystems, is at growing risk from intensive peripheral agricultural, industrial and urban development ?problems expected to be compounded by climate change, United Nations University experts warn. Covering more than 165,000 square kilometers ?an area roughly equal to Florida ?in the heart of South America, the P...

Six million Africans face famine because of locusts, drought

With locusts and drought having destroyed crops and stripped grazing land for six million people across West Africa, small farmers have started selling livestock cheaply and eating the seed corn they should plant during next month's expected rains, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today. "The combined effect of drought and locust attack, pa...

Making Sure Sacred Sheep Don't Become Extinct

Animal geneticist Harvey D. Blackburn is responsible for collecting and storing thousands of samples of animal germplasm -- mainly semen and embryos -- to make sure there's enough genetic material to reintroduce a species if necessary. Much of his collection deals with important livestock such as Holstein cattle and Yorkshire pigs. But one of the collections Blackburn, who is the coordinat...

Study: Well-known protein helps stem cells become secretory cells

Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered that a single protein regulates secretion levels in the fruit fly's salivary gland and its skin-like outer layer. Th...

Late peak may have prevented severe flu season from becoming worse

The 2004-2005 flu season was at least as severe as the 2003-2004 season, but peaked later according to data from Solucient, a leading provider of healthcare information. This later peak may have prevented the most recent flu season from being even worse. A flu season's severity is reflected in hospital admissions for community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), one of the most common complications...

Hospitalizations because of chicken pox down dramatically since implementation of vaccine

Since the introduction of the varicella (chicken pox) vaccine in 1995, hospitalizations and doctor visits because of chicken pox have dropped dramatically, according to a study in the August 17 issue of JAMA. Varicella vaccine is recommended for routine immunization of children aged 12 to 18 months and for older susceptible children and adults in the United States, according to background...

Model identifies genes that induce normal skin cells to become abnormal

Northwestern University researchers have developed a novel, three-dimensional model that allows scientists to observe how interacting with the microenvironment of metastatic melanoma cells induces normal skin cells to become similar to aggressive cancer cells that migrate and spread throughout the body. The model, developed by Mary J. C. Hendrix and colleagues at Children's Memorial Resea...

OHSU discovery sheds light into how stem cells become brain cells

Researchers at the Oregon National Primate Research Center at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) have discovered one key gene that appears to control how stem cells become various kinds of brain cells. The finding has significant implications for the study of Parkinson's disease, brain and spinal cord injury, and other conditions or diseases that might be combated by replacing lost or...

How the brain learns to become addicted

Researchers have identified a key signaling molecule in the brain that appears to trigger the brain to "learn" a craving for cocaine. Their finding could offer an important target for drugs to treat addiction by short-circuiting that adaptive process. In an article in the February 16, 2006, issue of Neuron, Antonello Bonci and colleagues established that a short protein, or peptide, called...

Measuring artery repair cells could become new heart disease test

A more accurate method for measuring blood levels of specialized cells that circulate in the bloodstream and repair damage to the arterial lining has been discovered by Duke University Medical Center cardiologists. These cells, known as endothelial progenitor cells (EPC), are produced in the bone marrow and travel to the site of arterial damage. The researchers said that tests for EPCs cou...

Paleontologists learn how not to become a fossil

The best way to avoid becoming a fossil is to be small and live in deep, tropical waters. So say four paleontologists who have published a detailed, global study of clam preservation. Their work is intended to enhance evolutionary studies by determining what's missing from the fossil record and why. "Everyone talks about how imperfect the fossil record is, but not many people do anything a...

Genes affecting blood pressure change as children become adults

As children transform into adults some of the genes involved in controlling their blood pressure change as well, according to a study of more than 500 pairs of twins. The study of black and white identical and fraternal twins showed that changes in gene expression between ages 14 and 18 accounted for up to one third of the blood pressure variation that occurred by age 18, says Dr. Harold S...

Bone marrow cells can become functional gut lining cells

Researchers report the discovery that cells used in bone marrow transplantation can develop into new cells lining the gut, according to a study by Yale School of Medicine in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study showed that bone marrow derived cells can differentiate into functional gastrointestinal epithelial cells after bone marrow transplantation. Research was f...

Gene expression becomes heterogeneous with age in humans and rats

In a study of the effects of aging on gene expression, researchers have found that variation in gene expression among individuals tends to increase with age. The findings, which impact our understanding of the molecular forces that govern age-related changes, are reported in the May 23rd issue of Current Biology by Mehmet Somel and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropol...

Heal thyself: Systems biology model reveals how cells avoid becoming cancerous

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego and three other institutions have described for the first time a web of inter-related responses that cells use to avoid becoming diseased or cancerous after being exposed to a powerful chemical mutagen. The group led by UCSD bioengineering professor Trey Ideker describe in the May 19 issue of Science an elaborate system of gene control that...

MUHC announces a transplant first in Quebec

Doctors at the MUHC have announced Quebec's first successful combined heart/liver transplant. The patient, Patrice Dionne, age 54 years, was transferred from the Institut de cardiologie de Quebec (l'hôpital Laval) to the MUHC. The patient received his new heart and liver during a 6-hour operation on April 14, 2006 and was discharged 10 days later. The complex procedure involved 15 physicians, sur...

USC team reveals structure of APOBEC family protein

Researchers at the University of Southern California have provided the first 3-D view of a protein from an enzyme family that, through its ability to mutate genes, can both help and hinder human health. "This three-dimensional structur...

An AIDS-related virus tricks cells to become tumors, new Penn study finds

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered how the Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) subverts a normal cell process in order to promote tumor growth. The finding, published in the most recent issue of PLoS Pathogens, offers new potential strategies for treating Kaposi's sarcoma and other cancers associated with viruses. KSHV is an opportun...

More species in the tropics because species have been there longer

Why are there more species in the tropics than in the temperate regions of the globe? Many of the world's species live in the tropics (perhaps more than half), but the reason has been debated for more than 100 years. Many researchers have hypothesized that climatic factors somehow cause species to originate more quickly in tropical regions. In a paper appearing in the November issue of Th...

Gladstone investigators identify a new protective action for the powerful anti-HIV factor, APOBEC3G

Scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology (GIVI) have identified a previously unknown function of APOBEC3G (A3G), a protein that acts against HIV, a finding that may lead to new approaches for controlling HIV infection. The research, conducted by scientists...

Will the plague pathogen become resistant to antibiotics?

A small piece of DNA that helps bacteria commonly found in US meat and poultry resist several antibiotics has also been found in the plague bacillus Yersinia pestis, gene sequence researchers report. The ability to resist many of the antibiotics used against plague has been found so far in only a single case of the disease in Madagascar. But because the same ability is present in other k...

Scientists discover stage at which an embryonic cell is fated to become a stem cell

Cambridge scientists have discovered the stage at which some of the cells of a fertilised mammalian egg are fated to develop into stem cells and why this occurs. The findings of the study, which overturn the long-held belief that cells are the same until the fourth cleavage (division) of the embryo, are reported in today's edition of Nature. After fertilisation, the cells of the embryo a...

Childhood obesity among Quebec Cree raises concerns

Childhood obesity is increasing among the general population in Canada, but the statistics are even more alarming among First Nations, Inuit and Métis children. In a study published recently in the American Journal of Public Health, University of Alberta researchers found that up to 65 per cent of Cree preschoolers in northern Quebec communities were overweight or obese. Dr. Noreen Willows...

Bacteria control how infectious they become, study finds

The results of a new study suggest that bacteria that cause diseases like bubonic plague and serious gastric illness can turn the genes that make them infectious on or off. Knowing how disease-causing bacteria, like Yersinia pestis and E. coli, do this may one day help scientists create drugs that control the expression of these genes, thereby making the bacteria harmless, said Vladimir Sv...

Farmed salmon could become an invasive species in forest streams

Ever since the Norwegians expanded commercial farming of salmon in the 1960s, the industry has continued to rapidly grow worldwide. It has expanded to such a degree that prices for farmed salmon have plummeted and, there is concern that farmed fish may become the next invasive species. "Farmed fish escaping from marine net pens might become an invasive species in British Columbia, Washing...

In obesity, brain becomes 'unaware' of fat

Critical portions of the brain in those who are obese don’t really know they are overweight, researchers have reported in the March issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, published by Cell Press. These findings in obese mice show that a sensor in the brain that normally detects a critical fat hormone—causing a cascade of events that keeps energy balance in check—fails to engage. Meanwhile, the res...