Hope in Biological News

Neuropathic pain: The sea provides a new hope of relief

A compound initially isolated from a soft coral ( Capnella imbricata ) collected at Green Island off Taiwan, could lead scientists to develop a new set of treatments for neuropathic pain chronic pain that sometimes follows damage to the nervous system. Currently this form of pain is very poorly ...

New hope for fisheries

Scientists have joined forces in a groundbreaking assessment on the status of marine fisheries and ecosystems. The two-year study, led by Boris Worm of Dalhousie University and Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington and including an international team of 19 co-authors, shows that steps taken ...

Researchers team up to provide new hope for childhood hunger

ST. LOUIS, MO, July 28, 2009 A St. Louis-based team of plant and physician-scientists with a vision of eradicating malnutrition throughout the developing world today announced the formation of the Global Harvest Alliance (GHA), a humanitarian effort involving St. Louis Children's Hospital, The Don...

Biological warfare in bacteria offers hope for new antibiotics

Scientists are to study a group of proteins that are highly effective at killing bacteria and which could hold the key to developing new types of antibiotics. Researchers from the Universities of York and Leeds have been awarded 3.3m from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Counc...

'Shock and kill' research gives new hope for HIV-1 eradication

Latent HIV genes can be 'smoked out' of human cells. The so-called 'shock and kill' technique, described in a preclinical study in BioMed Central's open access journal Retrovirology , might represent a new milestone along the way to the discovery of a cure for HIV/AIDS. Dr. Enrico Garaci, pre...

Novel vaccine approach offers hope in fight against HIV

A research team may have broken the stubborn impasse that has frustrated the invention of an effective HIV vaccine, by using an approach that bypasses the usual path followed by vaccine developers. By using gene transfer technology that produces molecules that block infection, the scientists prote...

Breaking the ties that bind: New hope for biomass fuels

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, April 22, 2009Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers have discovered a potential chink in the armor of fibers that make the cell walls of certain inedible plant materials so tough. The insight ultimately could lead to a cost-effective and energy-efficient strategy for t...

New hope for advances in treating malaria

Researchers at the University of Leeds have developed chemicals which kill the most deadly malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium falciparum including those resistant to existing drugs. The compounds work by preventing the enzyme dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODH) - essential to the growth o...

New hope for treatment of neurodegenerative disorder

LOS ANGELES Researchers from the University of Southern California have taken an important first step toward protecting against Huntington disease using gene therapy. Huntington Disease is an incurable neurological disorder characterized by uncontrolled movements, emotional instability and los...

Stem cell breakthrough gives new hope to sufferers of muscle-wasting diseases

An experimental procedure that dramatically strengthens stem cells' ability to regenerate damaged tissue could offer new hope to sufferers of muscle-wasting diseases such as myopathy and muscular dystrophy, according to researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW). The world-first ...

'Neurological work-arounds' offer hope to people with monoamine-related disorders

Researchers have known for decades that the brain has a remarkable ability to "reprogram" itself to compensate for problems such as traumatic injury. Now, a research article published in the February 2009 issue of the journal Genetics ( http://www.genetics.org ) suggests that the brain may also ...

UGA study may give hope that ivory-billed woodpeckers still around

Athens, Ga. Until credible sightings popped up three years ago, the scientific world was in agreement that ivory-billed woodpeckers had gone the way of the dodo. A new study conducted by University of Georgia researchers reveals that the ivory-billed woodpecker could have persisted if as few as f...

UC Davis discovery offers hope for treating kidney cancer

Kidney cancer is typically without symptoms until it has spread to other organs, when it is also the most difficult to treat. Newer chemotherapies show great promise for extending survival during later disease stages, but they can also be highly toxic. In one of the first discoveries of its ki...

Systems biology brings hope of speeding up drug development

Almost every day brings news of an apparent breakthrough against cancer, infectious diseases, or metabolic conditions like diabetes, but these rarely translate into effective therapies or drugs, and even if they do clinical development usually takes well over a decade. One reason is that medical r...

UCSF Fresno leading-edge study lends hope to emphysema patients

Patients in the Valley with emphysema might soon be breathing a little easier thanks to a new airway bypass study called the Exhale Airways Stents for Emphysema (EASE) trial. The trial principal is Dr. Karl Van Gundy aided by investigators Drs. Michael Peterson, Jose Joseph, Timothy Evans and Kath...

New hope for the red squirrel

A number of red squirrels are immune to squirrelpox viral disease, which many believed would lead to the extinction of the species, scientists have discovered. Scientists led by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) have identified eight cases in which free-living red squirrels have survived ...

New beta-blocker to offer hope to heart and lung sufferers

Researchers at The University of Nottingham have been awarded 2.8 million by the Wellcome Trust to develop a new drug that could ease the suffering of hundreds of thousands of heart disease patients who are unable to take beta-blockers. In the UK, 2.6 million people suffer from heart disease an...

Argyrin: Natural substance raises hope for new cancer therapies

The effective treatment of many forms of cancer continues to pose a major problem for medicine. Many tumours fail to respond to standard forms of chemotherapy or become resistant to the medication. Scientists at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig, the Hannover Medica...

Stem cells offer cartilage repair hope for arthritis sufferers

Research being presented today (11 April) at the UK National Stem Cell Network Annual Science Meeting in Edinburgh could offer hope that bone stem cells may be harnessed to repair the damaged cartilage that is one of the main symptoms of osteoarthritis. Scientists at Cardiff University have suc...

New hope for hepatitis C sufferers

Adelaide scientists will lead a $2 million five-year project to develop new vaccines and explore better treatment options for hepatitis C sufferers. University of Adelaide virologists Dr Michael Beard and Dr Karla Helbig will work with colleagues from the University of NSW to develop new strateg...

Genes linked with lupus are revealed, giving hope for new treatments

Scientists have identified a number of genes involved in Lupus, a devastating autoimmune disease, in new research published today in the journal Nature Genetics. In an international genetic study of more than 3,000 women, researchers found evidence of an association between Lupus (systemic lupu...

UBC discovery unlocks tree genetics, gives new hope for pine beetle defense

UBC researchers have discovered some of the genetic secrets that enable pine and spruce trees to fight off pests and disease, uncovering critical new information about forests natural defense systems. Assoc. Prof. Joerg Bohlmann says this genetic analysis will allow forest stewardship programs ...

Research unveils new hope for deadly childhood disease

Investigators at the University of Rochester Medical Center have uncovered a promising drug therapy that offers a ray of hope for children with Batten disease a rare neurodegenerative disease that strikes seemingly healthy kids, progressively robs them of their abilities to see, reason and move, ...

New class of drug offers hope to treatment-resistant AIDS patients

Athens, Ga. For the estimated millions of AIDS patients worldwide who are resistant or are developing resistance to currently available medicines, a discovery by a University of Georgia researcher may offer a new treatment option by targeting a previously elusive enzyme in the complex retrovirus ...

New hope for horse lovers as effective control for killer ragwort is proposed

Scientists propose developing an environmentally-friendly fungal spray that would specifically target Ragwort, infecting and killing the weed at a critical growth stage. This spray will contain a host-specific, plant pathogenic fungus as the active ingredient and will have no side-effects on non-...

Contraception: progress brings hope for new methods for men

For decades, pundits have predicted new contraceptives for men within the next 5 to 10 years. Are we really getting any closer? Judging from work presented today at the second "Future of Male Contraception" conference, the answer may finally be yes. But will men actually use a new method if r...

New Swedish research hope for millions of sufferers

Todays issue of the scientific journal Science presents research on the genetic make-up and biology of the parasite Giardia lamblia that ultimately may lead to better diagnosis and treatment of the diarrhea disease giardiasis, which affects 200 million people every year. It may also bring an unde...

Abandon hope

Do you "hope" that everyone will see the light and start living more sustainably to save the environment? If so, you may be doing more harm than good. So say an environmental scientist and an environmental ethicist in a provocative essay in the March 2009 issue of the international journal, Th...

Stem cell breakthrough offers diabetes hope

Scientists have discovered a new technique for turning embryonic stem cells into insulin-producing pancreatic tissue in what could prove a significant breakthrough in the quest to find new treatments for diabetes. The University of Manchester team, working with colleagues at the University of S...

Major genetic breakthrough for ankylosing spondylitis brings treatment hope

Research funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Arthritis Research Campaign has identified two genes implicated in the disease ankylosing spondylitis, a common disease primarily causing back pain and progressive stiffness. The research, published online today in Nature Genetics, suggests that a trea...

Gene may hold key to future cancer hope

Scientists may have discovered a new way of killing tumours in what they hope could one day lead to alternative forms of cancer treatments. The University of Manchester research has identified a key gene that appears to play a critical role in the normal process of cell division. Cells divid...

Soils offer new hope as carbon sink

The huge potential of agricultural soils to reduce greenhouse gases and increase production at the same time has been reinforced by new research findings at NSW Department of Primary Industries' (DPI) Wollongbar Agricultural Institute. Trials of agrichar - a product hailed as a saviour of Austra...

'Lucky 13' as new gene discovery offers further hope for childhood blindness

An international research team has discovered a gene that, when mutated, causes one of the most common forms of inherited blindness in babies. Scientists at the University of Leeds, working in collaboration with experts from other centres around the world, identified the gene, which is essential t...

Thymus transplants gives hope to babies with fatal immune disease

"My baby is doing what other babies her age are doing -- she's feeding herself, putting on her own clothes and she loves to dance." Lolita Harding is describing her daughter Dave'yana, who will turn three in September, thanks in large part to a thymus transplant she received at Duke University Me...

Cambodian vulture nests offer hope for species

Working in the remote forests of Cambodia, conservationists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have just discovered Southeast Asia's only known breeding colony of slender-billed vultures, one of the world's most threatened bird species. Found in heavily forested country just east of t...

Study shows hope for early diagnosis of Alzheimer's

Research by faculty and staff at Rowan University, Glassboro, N.J.; the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine; and Drexel University may lead to better diagnosis of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. In a $1.1-million National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging study that te...

Natural gut hormone offers hope for new obesity drug

A hormone found naturally in the gut is the basis of a new drug to tackle obesity, one of three inaugural awards under the Wellcome Trust's Seeding Drug Discovery initiative. The drug is being developed by one of the world's leading obesity experts, Professor Steve Bloom at Imperial College London'...

Bacteria research offers hope for new vaccine against meningococci

Each year 170,000 people around the world die of this type of meningitis, according to the World Health Organization, WHO. Bacterial meningitis, as the disease is called, can even spark epidemics: in Africa 250,000 people were affected in a matter of weeks in the late 1990s. Without treatment, mo...

Fertility hope as study shows eggs survive in older ovaries

In research that could have broad implications for women's fertility treatments, scientists have found that despite their age, female mice have a renewable egg supply in their ovaries. The discovery, by Professor Jock Findlay from Prince Henry's Institute and Associate Professor Jeff Kerr from Mo...

Research offers new hope for preterm babies

A new machine ?the only one of its kind in Australia - is helping scientists better monitor the health of preterm babies. Scientists at the Monash Institute of Medical Research (MIMR) are carrying out studies to understand the relationship between blood pressure and the amount of oxygen in a pret...