Fighting

Molecule that usually protects infection-fighting cells may cause plaque deposits inside arteries

A molecule that usually protects the body's infection-fighting cells might also contribute to fatty buildups that coat arteries and lead to heart disease, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found. The molecule, called apoptosis inhibitor of macrophage or AIM, inhibits cell death in macrophages, which circulate in the bloodstream and help the body fend off infection and foreign...

Researchers find promising cancer-fighting power of synthetic cell-signaling molecule

Novel anti-cancer compounds called Enigmols suppress the growth of human cell lines representing cancers of the prostate, breast, colon, ovary, pancreas, brain and blood, and reduce tumors in three animal studies, new research shows. In addition, Enigmols did not show side effects at effective doses, according to the research conducted at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory Universi...

To Stop Evolution: New Way Of Fighting Antibiotic Resistance Demonstrated By Scripps Scientists

A team of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute and the University of Wisconsin have demonstrated a new way of fighting antibiotic resistance: by stopping evolution. In the June issue of the open-access journal PloS Biology, the team describes how a protein called LexA in the bacterium Escherichia coli promotes mutations and helps the pathogen evolve resistance to antibiotics. The...

Experiment station researchers to explore genome of disease-fighting fungus

A team of Texas Agricultural Experiment Station scientists will soon begin genome sequencing a disease-fighting fungus used to protect crops, which has implications for both agriculture and the pharmaceutical industry. The fungus, Trichoderma virens, is used to protect field crops from various plant diseases. Researchers say the genome sequencing work may uncover chemical compounds and be...

Bacterial genome sheds light on synthesizing cancer-fighting compounds

Sea squirts around the world are breathing a sigh of relief, as they no longer run the risk of being harvested for their natural disease-fighting substances. Scientists recently discovered that the bacterium Prochloron didemnii, which lives symbiotically inside the sea squirt, actually produces the desired patellamides, compounds that may one day be used in cancer treatment. Despite decade...

Fighting malaria by manipulating mosquitoes' sense of smell

Combating the spread of malaria by manipulating the mosquitoes' sense of smell is the object of an ambitious research project, led by Vanderbilt University, that has been selected to receive $8.5 million as part of the Grand Challenges to Global Health. The initiative, which was launched by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has just announced the selection of 43 "groundbreaking" resea...

Anthrax stops body from fighting back, study shows

University of Florida researchers have uncovered how the inhaled form of anthrax disarms bacteria-fighting white blood cells before they can fend off the disease, which kills most victims within days. The lethal toxin in anthrax paralyzes neutrophils, the white blood cells that act as the body's first defense against infection, by impairing how they build tiny filaments that allow them to...

Scientists develop fungus-fighting vaccine

A group of scientists in Italy have developed a vaccine with the potential to protect against fungal pathogens that commonly infect humans, according to a study by Torosantucci and colleagues in the September 5 issue of The Journal of Experimental Medicine. Although these fungi pose little threat to people with healthy immune systems, they can cause fatal infections in those whose immune systems...

Radioactive scorpion venom for fighting cancer

Health physicists are establishing safe procedures for a promising experimental brain-cancer therapy which uses a radioactive version of a protein found in scorpion venom. For many, this will conjure images of Spiderman's nemesis, the Scorpion. The purpose of this work is not science fiction, but rather to help to develop a promising new therapy for brain cancer. The venom of the yellow Israe...

Prevention is the best option: fighting autoimmune diseases

Centenary scientist Associate Professor Barbara Fazekas de St. Groth, a leader in inflammatory bowel disease research, has demonstrated for the firsttime the important role of T cells in the prevention of autoimmune diseases in humans. In a study involving 38 patients with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, the two common forms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and 43 healthy contr...

Fighting like a girl or boy determined by gene in fruit flies

Fighting like a girl or fighting like a boy is hardwired into fruit fly neurons, according to a study in the Nov. 19 Nature Neuroscience advance online publication by a research team from Harvard Medical School and the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna. The results confirm that a gene known as "fruitless" is a key factor underlying sexual differences in behavior. The findings mark a mile...

UVa researchers seek to unlock broccoli's cancer fighting secret

After all these years, mom was right. She knew broccoli was good for you, she just didn't know it was this good. "Everyone knows broccoli is good for you and that it contains compounds known to lessen the occurrence of some types of cancer. We want to know how these compounds work and what their specific targets may be," says Janet V. Cross, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Pathology at the U...

Hope for major advance in fighting world killer disease

University of Leicester scientists are heading a worldwide research project which could revolutionise the diagnosis and treatment of diarrhoea in children in developing countries. The four-year project, the results of which are now being piloted in four hospitals in India, will offer a means of identifying the two most deadly forms of the disease quickly, cheaply and with little training n...

Unique tomatoes tops in disease-fighting antioxidants

Deep red tomatoes get their rich color from lycopene, a disease-fighting antioxidant. A new study, however, suggests that a special variety of orange-colored tomatoes provide a different form of lycopene, one that our bodies may more readily use. Researchers found that eating spaghetti covered in sauce made from these orange tomatoes, called Tangerine tomatoes, caused a noticeable boost in...

Fighting to keep Darwin in the classroom

Nearly a century ago, John Scopes was found guilty of violating a Tennessee statute when he taught evolution in his classroom. Though an appeals court later reversed his conviction on a technicality, the law lingered on the books, joined by later laws promoting "scientific creationism," and, most recently, "intelligent design." The battle to keep religiously based explanations of the history of...

Fighting influenza & co. with 40,000 blood samples

Four million people die every year from respiratory diseases such as viral influenza. For elderly people in particular, an infection can be dangerous. What is more, the flu vaccine is not as effective with this risk group as it is with younger people. The reason for this is that with age the fire power of the immune system is reduced. Why this is the case is largely unknown. An international EU p...

Nanotextured implant materials: blending in, not fighting back

Biomedical engineers are constantly coming up with ways to repair the human body, replacing defective and worn out parts with plastic, titanium, and ceramic substitutes ?but the body does not always accept such substitutes seamlessly. Engineers from Brown and Purdue universities have found that simply changing the surface texture of implants can dramatically change the way cells colonize a wide v...

Researchers from the University of Navarra analyze new kinds of cancer-fighting antibodies

Two researchers from the University Hospital and the Center for Applied Medical Research (CIMA) from the University of Navarra have published an article in , one of the leading scientific journals in the area of cancer studies. The article, written by Ignacio Melero and Sandra Hervas-Stubbs, together with other scientists from the United States and Great Britain, addre...

'Nurse cells' make life and death decisions for infection-fighting cells

The infection-fighting cells, known as thymocytes or T cells, live in the thymus, an organ in the upper portio...