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Novel antiviral technology inhibits RSV infection in mice

A novel antiviral treatment combiningnanoparticle and gene silencing technologies thwarts attacks ofrespiratory syncytial virus (RSV) -- a virus associated with severebronchitis and asthma, an animal study by University of South Floridaresearchers found. The study was reported in the January 2005 issue ofthe journal Nature Medicine.RSV infects lung cells and can be life-threatening in very...

Emory Eye Center Implants Its First Retinal Chips In Patients With Retinitis Pigmentosa

An expanded clinical trial conducted by Optobionics Corporation involving the implantation of a retina mircrochip has allowed Emory Eye Center and the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Rehabilitation Research & Development Center to implant the device in several patients. The patients all have retinitis pigmentosa with moderate-to-severe vision loss. Three centers in the United States have been chosen...

FDA Warns Consumers Not to Use Home-Use Diagnostic Kits Marketed by Globus Media

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning consumers not to use unapproved home-use diagnostic test kits that have been marketed nationwide via the Internet by Globus Media, Montreal, Canada. The use of these products could result in false results that could lead to significant adverse health consequences. The illegal kits are labeled as: Rapid HIV Test Kit. * Rapid Syphilis Te...

Examination of internal 'wiring' of yeast, worm, and fly reveals conserved circuits

First-of-its-kind analysis published in the Feb. 8 PNAS supports the concept of a basic wiring diagram for all eukaryotes. Researchers in California, Israel, and Germany have compared three distantly related species ?baker's yeast, a worm, and the fruit fly ?and reported that protein "wiring" connections in one species are often conserved in all three. This first-of-its-kind analysis of t...

Nonlinear Dynamics announces more details of its global partnership with PerkinElmer

Nonlinear Dynamics Ltd, a leading provider of bioinformatics solutions, today announced further details of its global OEM partnership with PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE: PKI), a leading provider of drug discovery, life science research and analytical solutions. As detailed in a press release issued last week, PerkinElmer will distribute Nonlinear's full range of 1D, 2D and array software. Howeve...

Genetically modified rice in China benefits farmers' health, study finds

Farmers growing genetically modified rice in field trials in China report higher crop yields, reduced pesticide use and fewer pesticide-related health problems, according to a study by researchers in China and at Rutgers University and the University of California, Davis. "This paper studies two of the f...

Epstein-Barr virus protein crucial to its role in blood cancers

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have identified a link between a critical cancer pathway and an Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) protein known to be expressed in a number of EBV-associated cancers. Their findings demonstrate a new mechanism by which EBV transforms human B cells from the immune system into cancerous cells, which can lead to development of B-cell lymphomas....

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...

Stopping smallpox in its tracks: A new anti-viral approach

Natural or deliberate exposure to smallpox poses a great health threat, especially since routine smallpox vaccinations have been discontinued and no clinically approved treatment currently exists. In the February 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Ellis Reinherz and colleagues from Harvard Medical School propose a new antiviral therapy ?a low molecular weight inhibitor of signaling...

Agilent Technologies releases probe sequence, annotation information for all its commercial gene expression microarrays

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) today announced that it has for the first time released the chip design, probe sequence and annotation information for all of its microarrays. The release of this information is expected to improve cross-laboratory experimental research and cross-platform data comparison. "Full release of the probe sequences is an admirable and responsible position for A...

Affymetrix Launches New Globin-Reduction Kits and Protocol Developed with PreAnalytiX

Affymetrix Inc. (Nasdaq: AFFX), announced today the launch of the new GeneChip(R) Globin-Reduction kits and associated protocol developed in conjunction with PreAnalytiX -- a joint venture between QIAGEN N.V. (Nasdaq: QGEN; Frankfurt, Prime Standard: QIA) and BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company). The new kits optimize the PreAnalytiX PAXgene(TM) Blood RNA System for use with Affymetrix GeneChip tec...

Atmosphere may cleanse itself better than previously thought

A research team from Purdue University and the University of California, San Diego has found that the Earth’s atmosphere may be more effective at cleansing itself of smog and other damaging hydrocarbons than was once thought. Scientists, including Joseph S. Francisco, have learned that some naturally occurring atmospheric chemicals react with sunlight more effectively than previously thou...

Searching the depths of the straits of Florida for disease cures

On Monday, the Harbor Branch drug discovery group will begin a 2-week expedition to explore the Straits of Florida in search of organisms that produce chemicals with the potential to cure diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's. The work will include the first submersible exploration of the remote Cay Sal Bank, which encompasses a number of small, uninhabited islands 30 miles north of Cuba. Cay S...

Fat's fate depends on its source

A healthy metabolism requires a healthy dose of fat, suggests a new study published in the May issue of Cell Metabolism. Fats taken in directly from the diet or generated from sugars spark a cascade of gene activity in the liver necessary for healthy blood levels of sugar, cholesterol, and other fats, according to the researchers. Old fat stores alone failed to set those critical metabolic...

When it comes to cell entry, being average has its advantages

When it comes to gaining entry into cells, size matters. A team from Brown University and the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research has created a model that explains how viruses and other bioparticles slip inside cells without a special protein coating called clathrin. The secret, it seems, is to be average. Mid-sized nanomaterials ?about 27 to 30 nanometers in diameter, or about 1,000...

To translate touch, the brain can quickly rearrange its sense of the body

The brain is bombarded by information about the physical proportions of our bodies. The most familiar sensations, such as a puff of wind or the brush of our own shirt sleeve, serve to constantly remind the brain of the body's outer bounds, creating a sense of what is known as proprioception. In a new study, researchers report this week that the brain's ability to interpret external signals and up...

Deep sleep short-circuits brain's grid of connectivity

In the human brain, cells talk to one another through the routine exchange of electrical signals. But when people fall into a deep sleep, the higher regions of the brain - regions that during waking hours are a bustling grid of neural dialogue - apparently lose their ability to communicate effectively, causing consciousness to fade. Writing today (Sept. 30) in the journal Science, a team o...

Stem cell training program to make its Stanford debut

Nature is a seemingly endless storehouse of interesting ?and potentially life-saving ?biological molecules. But tracking down and harvesting those chemicals in their natural form can be time-consuming, expensive and unreliable. Now Salk scientists have discovered a new way of bringing “bio-prospecting?out of the rainforest and into the lab. Their findings are published in the June 16th ed...

Gene Bridges And Covalys To Develop Restriction-Enzyme-Free SNAP-tag Gene Fusion Kits

Gene Bridges and Covalys Biosciences AG today announced a collaboration to develop "Copy & Paste" DNA engineering kits to generate SNAP-tag fusion proteins based on Gene Bridges' Red/ET recombination technology. Gene Bridge's Red/ET cloning system does not require restriction enzymes and allows the engineering of large DNA sequences, such as BACs, (bacterial artificial chromosomes) with singl...

Aloe vera coating may prolong freshness, safety of fruits and vegetables

gel is best known for its therapeutic effect on burned or irritated skin, but in the future you could be eating the gel as a healthful additive to your fruits and veggies. Researchers in Spain say they have developed a gel from the tropical plant that can be used as an edible coating to prolong the quality and safety of fresh produce. The gel, which does not appear to affect fo...

Ants, not evil spirits, create devil's gardens in the Amazon rainforest, study finds

For the first time, scientists have identified an ant species that produces its own natural herbicide to poison unwanted plants. Stanford University biologist Deborah M. Gordon and her co-workers describe the findings in the Sept. 22 issue of the journal Nature. The discovery was made during a four-year field study led by Stanford graduate student Megan E. Frederickson in the Amazon jungl...

Researchers find molecule that inhibits regrowth of spinal nerve cells

A molecule that helps the body's motor nerve cells grow along proper paths during embryonic development also plays a major role in inhibiting spinal-cord neurons from regenerating after injury, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found. In cultured cells, the researchers found that a component of myelin ?a substance that normally insulates and stabilizes long nerve fibers in adult...

Learning how SARS spikes its quarry

Researchers have determined the first detailed molecular images of a piece of the spike-shaped protein that the SARS virus uses to grab host cells and initiate the first stages of infection. The structure, which shows how the spike protein grasps its receptor, may help scientists learn new details about how the virus infects cells. The information could also be helpful in identifying potential we...

Techniques available to detect soil that inhibits destructive soybean pest

Identification of soils that inhibit a tiny soybean-destroying organism is an important tool in reducing yield losses, according to a Purdue University plant pathologist. Soybean cyst nematodes cause between $800 million and $1 billion annually in crop losses in the United States, according the American Phytopathological Society. However, techniques are available to find soils that specifi...

GM crop that holds on to its seeds offers higher yields

Researchers have found a way of boosting the yield of a major crop by stopping its seedpods from bursting open....

Research Permits First-Ever Visualization of Psychological Stress in the Human Brain

Using a novel application of an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) technique, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have, for the first time, visualized the effects of everyday psychological stress in a healthy human brain. Their work, performed at Penn's Center for Functional Neuroimaging, provides a neuro-imaging marker of psychological stress -- whic...

The first laugh: New study posits evolutionary origins of two distinct types of laughter

In an important new study from the forthcoming Quarterly Review of Biology, biologists from Binghamton University explore the evolution of two distinct types of laughter ?laughter which is stimulus-driven and laughter which is self-generated and strategic. "Laughter that occurs during everyday social interaction in response to banal comments and humorless conversation is now being studied...

Chemical compound inhibits tumor growth, size in new mouse study

Penn State food scientists have shown that the amount of health-linked polyphenols present during roasting or baking influences the toasty aroma developed by oats and might be used to limit the generation of off-flavors in oat products. Polyphenols are a large family of naturally occurring plant components that have been associated with a wide variety of health benefits. Flavonoids and so...

Health benefits of a Christmas brandy

Drinking a shot of smooth full-flavoured brandy this Christmas could actually benefit your health, Monash University researchers have found. The key to its benefit is antioxidants conta...

Membrane research opens window to benefits for plants, humans

A wilting, water-starved houseplant and flood-covered crops have something in common. That knowledge, gleaned from spinach and researchers on two continents, potentially could open the gate to advances in both plant and human health. The research, which appeared online this month in advance of regular publication by the journal Nature, involved a tandem of basic-science firsts that offer i...

Is it Possible to Change Prescribing Habits?

In the US more than 770,000 people are injured or die each year in hospitals from adverse drug events (ADEs), which can cost a hospital, depending on its size, about US$5.6 million every year, excluding ADE-associated costs for malpractice and litigation and the personal costs of injuries to patients. Nationally, hospital expenses to treat patients who have ADEs during hospital admission a...

Sangamo BioSciences demonstrates its ZFP treatment protects cells from HIV infection

Sangamo BioSciences, Inc. today announced that data from its program to develop a ZFP Therapeutic for HIV/AIDS were presented at the 45th Annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) in Washington, DC. The study represents the first demonstration that cells can be made resistant to HIV infection by treatment with Sangamo's proprietary zinc finger DNA-binding pr...

Scientists narrow the time limits for the human and chimpanzee split

A team of researchers has proposed new limits on the time when the most recent common ancestor of humans and their closest ape relatives -- the chimpanzees -- lived. Scientists at Arizona State and Penn State Universities have placed the time of this split between 5 and 7 million years ago -- a sharper focus than that given by the previous collection of molecular and fossil studies, which have p...

Greasing interferon's gears may pave way to greater therapeutic benefits, fewer side effects

nterferon -- a critical protein that mediates the body's defense against a wide variety of infectious agents and tumors -- may soon have greater therapeutic value as the result of a new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "Essentially, we found a way to grease the gears that drive the interferon signal," says Michael J. Holtzman, M.D., the Selma...

Phenolic compounds may explain Mediterranean diet benefits

Phenolic compounds in olive oil, which have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-clotting properties, may explain cardiovascular health benefits associated with the so-called Mediterranean Diet, according to a new study in the Nov. 15, 2005, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. "It could be that the beneficial effect of the Mediterranean diet on cardiovascular dis...

How the neuron sprouts its branches

Neurobiologists have gained new insights into how neurons control growth of the intricate tracery of branches called dendrites that enable them to connect with their neighbors. Dendritic connections are the basic receiving stations by which neurons form the signaling networks that constitute the brain's circuitry. Such basic insights into neuronal growth will help researchers better unders...

New technique puts brain-imaging research on its head

It's a scene football fans will see over and over during the bowl and NFL playoff seasons: a player, often the quarterback, being slammed to the ground and hitting the back of his head on the landing. Sure, it hurts, but what happens to the inside of the skull? Researchers and doctors long have relied upon crude approximations made from test dummy crashes or mathematical models that infe...

Technique makes it easier to see mouse embryo in all its glory

A fast, high-resolution, 3D mouse embryo visualization technique developed by collaborators at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and the University of Utah will revolutionize the way birth defects and cancer genes are studied in animal models. That's the prediction of the researchers in an article to be published online in PLoS Genetics on April 28, a peer-reviewed, ope...

Learning to love bacteria: Stanford scientist highlights bugs' benefits

Bacteria are bad. Mothers and doctors, not to mention the cleaning product industry, repeatedly warn of their dangers. But a Stanford University School of Medicine microbiologist is raising the intriguing idea that persistent bacterial and viral infections have benefits. Stanley Falkow, PhD, the Robert W. and Vivian K. Cahill Professor in Cancer Research, is publishing his thoughts on this...

Light activated anticancer drug targeted to DNA using cisplatin like sub-units

One of the most effective chemotherapy drugs against cancer is cisplatin because it attaches to cancer DNA and disrupts repair. However, it also kills healthy tissue. Many scientists are creating alternative drugs or cisplatin analogs in attempts to find treatments without side effects. One approach to analog development is light activated drugs, or photodynamic therapy (PDT). Now a Virginia Tech...