ENG

Recent breakthroughs in common adult leukemia highlighted in New England Journal of Medicine

When the most common adult leukemia in the United States was last reviewed by the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) in 1995, it was seen through the eyes of theories that dated back to the 1960s. As such, the journal recently invited three of the world's foremost experts on chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) to write an authoritative update covering the transformation in the scientific commu...

U-M scientist to talk about tissue engineering at AAAS

Scientists have a pretty good handle on how to teach human cells to do tricks in a laboratory---things like getting soft cells from the mouth's lining to form bone. But in the real world, accomplishing such feats is more complex. Regenerating the jaw bone of a person undergoing radiation therapy for cancer means managing the constant bacteria bath of a human mouth as well as compensating...

Scientists find missing enzyme for tuberculosis iron scavenging pathway

Scientists have discovered that a protein that was originally believed to be involved in tuberculosis antibiotic resistance is actually a "missing enzyme" from the biosynthetic pathway for an agent used by the bacteria to scavenge iron. The research appears as the "Paper of the Week" in the April 8 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, an American Society for Biochemistry and Molec...

Leukemia Drug Breakthrough Study In New England Journal Of Medicine

Alan List, M.D., leader of the Hematologic Malignancies Program at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, recently conducted a phase I/II trial of the experimental drug Revlimid showing promise as an innovative way to treat patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a form of pre-leukemia. Given in pill form, Revlimid simultaneously blocks the growth of new blood vessels th...

Ants Genetic Engineering Leads To Species Interdependency

Findings reported last week reveal how anevolutionary innovation involving the sharing of genes between two antspecies has given rise to a deep-seated dependency between them for thesurvival of both species populations.The new work illustrates how genetic exchange through interbreedingbetween two species can give rise to a system of interdependence at ahigh level of biological organization...

Rats infected as newborns grew up vulnerable to memory problems during an immune challenge

Underscoring the value of good prenatal care, new research suggests that early infection may create a cognitive vulnerability that appears later during stress on the immune system. Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder have reported that rats who experienced a one-time infection as newborns didn't learn as well as adult rats who were not infected as pups, after their immunity was c...

Supercomputer Dedicated To Bioengineering, Computational Biology Installed

The University of California, San Diego, with support from the National Institutes of Health and the Whitaker Foundation, has installed a supercomputer dedicated to solving a wide range of challenging biological problems. The 210-node Dell PowerEdge Linux cluster capable of 2.6 trillion mathematical operations per second, the second most powerful computer cluster on campus, will be used to analyz...

Programmable cells: Engineer turns bacteria into living computers

In a step toward making living cells function as if they were tiny computers, engineers at Princeton have programmed bacteria to communicate with each other and p...

Microbial forensics: The next great forensic challenge

Deliberately spreading disease among the enemy has been occasionally practiced over hundreds of years. But modern bioterrorism is more chilling than ever because of rapidly expanding knowledge about infectious diseases and biotoxins and their potential to wreak havoc in complex, interdependent societies. The nation is in the process of developing a strong microbial forensic program to attribute a...

Duke engineers develop new 3-D cardiac imaging probe

Biomedical engineers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have created a new three-dimensional ultrasound cardiac imaging probe. Inserted inside the esophagus, the probe creates a picture of the whole heart in the time it takes for current ultrasound technology to image a single heart cross section. The new probe has considerable potential not only for evaluating the condition...

Roots Engage in Underground Chemical Warfare

In addition to providing physical support and taking in nutrients, plant roots secrete a wide variety of compounds that affect other nearby roots, as well as insects and microbes. But because it goes on unseen, bactericidal root activity has not been extensively investigated—until now. Using the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, a relative of garden-variety cabbage, Jorge Vivanco and co-workers a...

UCSD medical/bioengineering reseachers show titanium debris satobtage artificial joints

Microscopic titanium particles weaken the bonding of hip, knee, and other joint replacements, according to research published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine and the Jacobs School of Engineering. The team demonstrated that titanium implants are safe in large blocks, but at the microscopic...

Changing ecosystems throw scientists mega-challenges

Accelerating environmental changes have presented humanity with some significant scientific and engineering challenges, according to the new National Science Foundation (NSF) report, Pathways to the Future: Complex Environmental Systems: Synthesis for Earth, Life and Society in the 21st Century. Among the changes the report cites are rapid shifts in climate and ecosystems, the degradation...

Molecular messengers perform a crucial role in the ability of injured nerve cells to heal themselves

Weizmann Institute findings might advance search for new therapies for injured nerve fibers. Long distance messengers star in many heroic tales, perhaps the most famous being the one about the runner who carried the news about the victory of the Greeks over the Persians in the fateful battle of Marathon. A team of researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science has now discovered how molecular m...

Chemical Engineer Kao Explores Antibiotic Synthesis With DNA Chips

Ask Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering Camilla Kao to describe a bacterium, and she'll compare it to a factory capable of producing antibiotics, immunosuppressants and anti-cancer drugs that no chemist can synthesize. Bacteria normally produce antibiotics to inhibit other bacterial strains competing for resources. Pharmaceutical companies exploit this property to manufacture drugs, but t...

Engineers improve plastic's potential for use in implants by linking it to biological material

Engineers at The University of Texas at Austin have found a way to modify a plastic to anchor molecules that promote nerve regeneration, blood vessel growth or other biological processes. In the study led by Dr. Christine Schmidt, the researchers identified a piece of protein from among a billion candidates that could perform the unusual feat of attaching to polypyrrole, a synthetic polym...

Second messenger NAADP shows fast, dose-related impact on satiety cycle

One traditional approach to pharmaceutical design uses so-called "first messengers" ?hormones, other natural facilitators or synthetic products ?to initiate various cellular cascades for the desired physiological effect. To date, despite concerted efforts at all levels of research, this approach has failed to develop a truly successful obesity drug to address this major global health problem....

MIT engineers an anti-cancer smart bomb

Imagine a cancer drug that can burrow into a tumor, seal the exits and detonate a lethal dose of anti-cancer toxins, all while leaving healthy cells unscathed. The dual-chamber, double-acting, drug-packing "nanocell" proved effective and safe, with prolonged survival, against two distinct forms of cancers--melanoma and L...

Measurement Challenges In Detecting Cancer Biomarkers

Effective control of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) requires treatment of the sexual partners of infected patients. A new study shows that providing infected men with antibiotics to give their partners is more effective than traditional means of contacting and treating the partners, according to an article in the Sept. 1 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online. Men with...

Disease diagnosis, bioengineering covered at state nano summit

Research into the evolution of protein design by a University of Houston professor will be featured among nearly 20 presentations at the 2005 Nano Summit Research Conference July 28. Sponsored by the Nanotechnology Found...

Insects develop resistance to engineered crops

Genetically modified crops containing two insecticidal proteins in a single plant efficiently kill insects. But when crops engineered with just one of those toxins grow nearby, insects may more rapidly develop resistance to all the insect-killing plants, report Cornell University researchers. A soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), whose genes are inserted into crop plants, su...

Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative funds Yale project

Yale has been offered $17 million from the Grand Challenges in Global health initiative to genetically engineer mice with immune systems similar enough to humans to aid in testing the safety and effectiveness of potential vaccines. Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Yale project will be headed by Richard A. Flavell, M.D., Sterling Professor and Chair of Immunobiology at...

UCLA scientists strengthen case for life more than 3.8 billion years ago

Ten years ago, an international team of scientists reported evidence, in a controversial cover story in the journal Nature, that life on Earth began more than 3.8 billion years ago--400 million years earlier than previously thought. A UCLA professor who was not part of that team and two of the original authors will report in late July that the evidence is stronger than ever. Craig E. Mann...

Engineered molecule amplifies body's immune response

By altering a molecule called Stat1, which is involved in cellular immune signaling, scientists have succeeded in making the molecule more responsive and thus more efficient. This old protein with a new twist may eventually be used to improve the body's defense against infection. Stat1 is involved in immune responses that are initiated by proteins called interferons. These proteins are p...

Penguin chicks exposed to human visitors experience spike in stress hormone

Newly hatched magellanic penguin chicks in breeding grounds with a large number of human visitors show a significant spike in levels of a stress-related hormone compared to chicks hatched in areas not visited by humans, a University of Washington research team has found. It wasn't until chicks with limited human exposure reached 40 to 50 days old that they showed a stress response like the...

Engineered skin offers clues to melanoma development

When it comes to the deadly skin cancer melanoma, studying functional tissue rather than cell lines may better provide insight into the disease's development, according to new research from a Howard Hughes Medical Institute predoctoral fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine. Though multiple genetic alterations are associated with melanoma development, scientists have not been abl...

Genetically engineered animals help in scientific research that may benefit children

The recent use of genetically modified mice and rats in combination with an animal model of obstructive nephropathy, a type of renal disease, has given researchers new insight in the development of kidney disease. This research is published in the September issue of Kidney International. "Chronic kidney disease is difficult to study since it takes a fair amount of time to install," states...

Scavenger cells could be key to treating HIV-related dementia

Understanding macrophages could lead to ways to prevent HIV-associated dementia Macrophages, long-living white blood cells often considered the scavengers of the immune system, actually may damage a part...

MWG Biotech expands siMAX?siRNA portfolio with new scales, lengths and design tools

University of Utah researchers showed that a fruit fly gene is crucial for determining when juveniles begin to mature into adults, and how the transformation initially proceeds. Understanding this process in humans may help explain how adorable children become surly teenagers. When the DHR4 gene is disabled, fruit flies prematurely begin metamorphosis ?maturation from an immature larva to...

New NIAID grants strengthen national biodefense and emerging infectious diseases research network

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, today announced four-year grants totaling approximately $80 million for two new Regional Centers of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research (RCE). The grants to the University of California, Irvine, and Colorado State University (Fort Collins) mark the completi...

Scientists and engineers apply nature's design to human problems

Copying the ideas of others is usually frowned upon, but when it comes to the work of Mother Nature, scientists are finding they can use nature as a template. An interdisciplinary group of scientists and engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology recently formed the Center for Biologically Inspired Design (CBID) with the goal of capitalizing on the rich source of design solutions pre...

Computer models aid understanding of antibody-dependent enhancement in spread of dengue fever

Evolutionary trade-off exists between advantage and disadvantage Some viruses' ability to exploit the human body's own defenses to increase their replication may be both a blessing and curse, according to the findings of a study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The process is known as antibody-dependent enhancement. Scientists believe antibo...

Report focuses on challenges to unlocking future promise of vaccines

Vaccines have helped eradicate and tame some of history's worst infectious diseases, but there are many more diseases out there that vaccines can help overcome. The challenges society needs to confront to unlock the future promise of vaccines against the plagues of the 21st century are the focus of a new report by the American Academy of Microbiology. "The success of vaccines in controlli...

Cells from amniotic fluid used to tissue-engineer a new trachea

Pediatric surgeon looks to fetal cells to repair birth defectsResearchers at Children's Hospital Boston report using tissue engineering to reconstruct defective tracheas (windpipes) in fetal lambs, first using cells from the amniotic fluid to grow sections of cartilage tube, and then implanting these living grafts into the lambs while still in the womb. The tracheal repair technique is one...

Engineered Stem Cells Show Promise For Sneaking Drugs Into The Brain

One of the great challenges for treating Parkinson's diseases and other neurodegenerative disorders is getting medicine to the right place in the brain. The brain is a complex organ with many different types of cells and structures, and it is fortified with a protective barrier erected by blood vessels and glial cells -- the brain's structural building blocks -- that effectively blocks the...

Nano springs eternal; Protozoan 'engine' posts nano records

Looking through his handmade microscope in 1702, it was Anton van Leeuwenhoek who first described the workings of a nano machine. He observed the rapid contraction of a stalk tethering the cell body of a tiny protozoan, Vorticella convallaria, to the surface of a leaf. Little did van Leeuwenhoek imagine that more than 300 years later, the biological spring that drives Vorticella would set records...

Engineers discover why toucan beaks are models of lightweight strength

As a boy growing up in Brazil 40 years ago, Marc A. Meyers marveled at the lightweight toughness of toucan beaks that he occasionally found on the forest floor. Now a materials scientist and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UCSD's Jacobs School of Engineering, Meyers said makers of airplanes and automobiles may benefit from the first ever detailed engineering analysis of touca...

Bioengineers create stable networks of blood vessels

Yale biomedical engineers have created an implantable system that can form and stabilize a functional network of fine blood vessels critical for supporting tissues in the body, according to a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. For body tissue to survive it must receive oxygen delivered through the finest of blood vessels. Led by Erin Lavik, assistant professor...

Simple idea to dramatically improve dengue vaccinations

An innovative new study explains, for the first time, the failure of previous attempts to vaccinate against the four known Dengue viruses, and it suggests a very simple solution ?injecting the four vaccines simultaneously at different locations on the body. A mosquito-born disease, Dengue kills tens of thousands of people per year and sickens 100 million more. Known as "bone-break disease,...

Rice bioengineers pioneer techniques for knee repair

A breakthrough self-assembly technique for growing replacement cartilage offers the first hope of replacing the entire articular surface of knees damaged by arthritis. The technique, developed at Rice University's Musculoskeletal Bioengineering Laboratory, is described in this month's issue of the journal Tissue Engineering. "This has significant ramifications because we are now beginning...