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New push for public health, AIDS spending at African Union summit

Activists hope this weekend's African Union (AU) summit will net commitments to boost government spending on public health, helping to curb the spread of AIDS, which killed 2.3 million Africans in 2004. "We are definitely optimistic that this time there will be some movement, that this time there will be not just talk about an HIV strategy for the AU but how to tackle an action-oriented p...

A new mechanism of regulating RNA degradation

As any dedicated video game player knows, the first requireme...

Quantum Dots Research Leads to New Knowledge about Protein Binding in Plants

UC Riverside researchers from the Departmentsof Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Mechanical Engineering andBotany and Plant Sciences have worked together to discover a way toutilize to uncover new knowledge about the binding of a protein at the growingpollen tube tip. This protein plays a critic...

New, automated tool successfully classifies and relates proteins in unprecedented way

For the first time, researchers haveautomatically grouped fluorescently tagged proteins fromhigh-resolution images of cells. This technical feat opens a new way toidentify disease proteins and drug targets by helping to show whichproteins cluster together inside a cell.The approach, developed by Carnegie Mellon University, outperformsexisting visual methods to localize proteins inside cells...

New binding target for oncogenic viral protein

The DNA tumor virus simian virus 40 produces the Large T antigen which inactivates two of the cell's most important cancer-preventing proteins, p53 and pRb. In a study published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center report the discovery of an additional target for T antigen--a protein called Fbw7. The Fbw7 gene is located in a ch...

Newly-discovered class of genes determines ?and restricts ?stem cell fate

Research on adult stem cells found in the skin hints at a new class of genes, according to a study from investigators at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. These genes ?dubbed pangenes ?can both govern a stem cell's fate and put a hold on future differentiation until the time is right. Understanding the molecular control of these genes has implications for therapies that involve t...

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...

New species from old data

In a new study, researchers present a “cautionary tale?about what may go wrong when using the fledgling science of proteomics to devise a diagnostic test for cancer. In the February 16 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center detail why an experimental test intended to identify early ovarian cancer from a...

Computers to be used to find blueprint for new influenza drug

Researchers at the University of Bath have won a £261,000 grant to use the latest software to produce a blueprint of a designer drug that could stop influenza and some other diseases from replicating in humans. Professor Ian...

Newly discovered virus linked to childhood lung disorders and Kawasaki disease

Late updatetonight; my girlfriend is sick and I took care of her. First headline :a newly discovered virus causing respiratory infection. Let's hope itsjust a coincidence :) A newly discovered virus may be responsible for many respiratory tractillnesses in infants and children, and may be associated with animportant multi-organ disease whose cause has...

Ancient olfaction protein is shared by many bugs, offering new pest control target

In the battle against insect pests, new research indicates that it may all come down to the sense of smell. A group of Rockefeller University scientists who had previously identified a key gene essential for the sense of smell in fruit flies now shows that this gene's function appears to be evolutionarily conserved across very different insect species. Research by Leslie Vosshall's laborat...

New Technique for Tracking Gene Regulators

Finding out where gene-regulator proteinsbind to DNA and identifying the genes they regulate just got a stepeasier thanks to a new technique developed by scientists at the U.S.Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. The techniquecould greatly speed the process of unraveling the role these proteinsplay in turning on and off the genes that establish the very identityof cells ?b...

U of M researcher examines newly emerging deadly disease

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have identified a newly emerging illness, named staphylococcal purpura fulminans. The disease begins as a respiratory tract infection, which then is infected by Staphylococcus aureus. The infection then moves to the lungs, making superantigens (bacterial toxins that activate large numbers of T cells), often leading to death due to hypertension and shock....

Dinosaur DNA? New Patent Covers Degraded DNA recovery

The US Patent Office issued Patent # 6,872,552, "A Method of Reconstituting Nucleic Acid Molecules" today to Burt D. Ensley, Ph.D, Chairman of MatrixDesign, and CEO of DermaPlus, Inc. The patent covers methods for recovering and reconstituting genes from "degraded" DNA samples, and could allow scientists to reassemble everything from prehistoric, extinct animals to unsolved crime scenes. "...

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...

Gene therapy converts dead bone graft to new, living tissue

Researchers have created a way to transform the dead bone of a transplanted skeletal graft into living tissue in an experiment involving mice. The advance, which uses gene therapy to stimulate the body into treating the foreign splint as living bone, is a promising development for the thousands of cancer and trauma patients each year who suffer with fragile and failing bone grafts. The findings w...

Molecular machine may lead to new drugs to combat human diseases

The crystallized form of a molecular machine that can cut and paste genetic material is revealing possible new paths for treating diseases such as some forms of cancer and opportunistic infections that plague HIV patients. Purdue University researchers froze one of these molecular machines, which are chemical complexes known as a Group I intron, at mid-point in its work cycle. When frozen...

Color-blind method opens new doors in DNA sequencing

A "color-blind" method of fluorescence detection developed by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and Rice University could open new doors that would take DNA sequencing to the patient's bedside, the doctor's office and even the scene of a crime or a battlefield. "We could eventually do direct detection of a DNA sequence from native DNA" without manipulation now performed in th...

New Clues Add 40,000 Years to Age of Human Species

Nearly 40 years after an historic anthropology expedition to Ethiopia's Lake Turkana basin, researchers have uncovered evidence suggesting human bones found at that time are roughly 195,000 years old. The researchers believe the findings may bolster the “Out-of-Africa?hypothesis that suggests we all trace to an ancient line that first evolved in Africa and then displaced other hominids as recent...

A bacterial genome reveals new targets to combat infectious disease

More than a billion people are at risk for infection with filarial nematodes, parasites that cause elephantiasis, African river blindness, and other debilitating diseases in more than 150 million people worldwide. The nematodes themselves play host to bacteria that live within their cells, but in this case, the relationship is classic mutualism, with each benefiting from the other. Indeed, the Wo...

New imaging method gives early indication if brain cancer therapy is effective, U-M study shows

A special type of MRI scan that measures the flow of water molecules through the brain can help doctors determine early in the course of brain cancer regimen if a patient's tumor will shrink, a new study shows. Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center developed the assessment, which they call a functional diffusion map. They used a magnetic resonance imaging sc...

Solution to Pollution: New Bacteria Eats Toxic Waste

Utah State University researchers recently discovered a new bacteria that is a natural cleanser for contaminated soil. The bacteria, now being used around the world, is an inexpensive and highly effective solution to pollution. “This project shows mother nature’s capability to be a master engineer,?said Ron Sims, biological and irrigation engineering department head. “Past disposal practi...

Weizmann Institute scientists develop a new approach for directing treatment to metastasized prostate cancer in the bones.

Few things about growing older are asinevitable and obvious as “going gray,?yet scientists have been unableto explain the precise cause of this usually unwelcome transformation.In a report posted today on the Web site of the journal Science,researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children’s HospitalBoston say they have found the cellular cause of graying hair whileinvestigating th...

New research questions basic tenet of neuron function

New findings by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center challenge one of the established views of how nerve cells communicate with one another. Every time we move, feel emotions, think or remember, the nerve cells, or neurons, in our body transmit messages to one another via chemical signals called neurotransmitters. Within neurons are tiny organelles called synaptic vesicles that s...

New Study from Affymetrix Laboratories Points to Changing View of How Genome Works

Scientists at Affymetrix, Inc. (Nasdaq: AFFX) reported today in Science magazine online that they have completed a high-resolution scan of structure and function for nearly 30 percent of the human genome sequence. In collaboration with the National Cancer Institute, the research team used high-density GeneChip(R) microarrays to study every fifth base, on average, of 10 human chromosomes; they fou...

New comparative toxicogenomics database

Scientists at St. Jude Children's ResearchHospital have discovered that the shape of a protein on the surface ofpneumonia bacteria helps these germs invade the human bloodstream. Thisfinding, published Dec. 16 online by the EMBO Journal, could helpscientists develop a vaccine that is significantly more effective atprotecting children against the disease. The St. Jude researchersdetermined t...

Scientists develop new color-coded test for protein folding

Every protein--from albumin to testosterone --is folded into a unique, three-dimensional shape that allows it to function properly. Now Stanford University scientists have developed a simple test that instantly changes color when a protein molecule attached to a gold nanoparticle folds or unfolds. The new technique, which works on the sa...

Researchers add new tool to tumor-treatment arsenal

A new study demonstrates the potential effectiveness of treating tumors by combining agents that damage DNA with a drug that sensitizes cancer cells to these agents. The research, led by George Thomas, PhD, professor at the University of Cincinnati's (UC) Genome Research Institute, and Heidi Lane of Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, appears in the March 25, 2005, issue of the jo...

New SARS Protein Linked To Important Cell Doorway

As public health officials in China brace for a potential resurgence in SARS (Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome) in connection with Chinese New Year on February 9, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have published insights into a new protein that could be an important contributor to the SARS virus' ability to cause disease and death. When the SARS virus first jumped from it...

MSI releases 'moleculizer' - a new approach to simulation of intracellular biochemical networks

Dr. Roger Brent, President and Director of Research at the the release of a new approach to simulation of intracellularbiochemical networks in the January 2005 edition of NatureBiotechnology.The research article, entit...

Scientists document complex genomic events leading to the birth of new genes

A team of scientists led by Peer Bork, Ph.D., Senior Bioinformatics Scientist at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, report today in the journal Genome Research that they have identified a new primate-specific gene family that spans about 10% of human chromosome 2. Comprised of eight family members, the RGP gene cluster may help to explain what sets apart humans and other primates from the...

New therapy for HIV/AIDS eliminates needles and excessive toxicity

A team led by Johns Hopkins scientists hasfound the first clear evidence that the process behind the human immunesystem's remarkable ability to recognize and respond to a milliondifferent proteins might have originated from a family of genes whoseonly apparent function is to jump around in genetic material. essentially cut...

DNA Recombination and Repair—A New Twist to RecA Function

Molecular motors harness the energy of ATP (or GTP, a related energy currency) and transform it into mechanical force. Well-known examples of motors include myosin and dynein, proteins that use ATP to ferry intracellular cargo along fibers made of actin or tubulin proteins. The ATP-dependent assembly of actin or tubulin fibers itself can work as a motor: for instance, the march of white blood cel...

New protein discovered by Hebrew University researchers

Researchers at the Hebrew University ofJerusalem have succeeded in discovering and isolating a new proteinfrom the poplar tree with special structural and qualitativecharacteristics that could have consequences for development of futurenanocapsules for drug delivery to cancer cells.In addition to being obtained from plant tissue, the protein can nowalso be produced in large quantities as a...

New studies suggest airborne SARS transmission is possible

Two new studies present evidence that the virus causing severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) may spread through the air, not just through direct contact with contaminated water droplets as previous research had shown. SARS coronavirus was detected in the air in a patient's room during the 2003 outbreak in Toronto, according to a new study published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases...

New Breast Cancer Test Could Save Lives

A team of researchers at the University of Bristol is developing a revolutionary new test to detect breast cancer at an early stage. If successful, this test will be effective for women of all ages; given that breast cancer is the largest killer of women between the ages of 35-55 in Europe, the test could have a dramatic effect on the number of deaths from this disease. The test, which ut...

New insight into people who 'see' colors in letters and numbers

People with a form of synesthesia in which they see colors when viewing letters and numbers really do see colors, researchers, led by Edward M. Hubbard of the University of California San Diego, have found. What's more, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of their brains reveals that they show activation of color-perception areas. The researchers said their findings lend support t...

New research indicates a 'troubled' greenhouse is brewing

Climates like those of the movie "Monsoon Wedding" may extend more widely into Africa, North America and South America, according to a University of Oregon geologist's analysis of an ancient greenhouse event. "We know the gathering greenhouse will be warm, but this new information confirms that the contrast between the rainy season and the dry season will increase dramatically," says Greg...

Newly Discovered Compound Blocks Known Cancer-Causing Protein

Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center scientists have discovered a potential new drug that inhibits destructive cell signals that drive the growth of one-third of all cancers. The scientists showed they could block the growth of cultured colon cancer cells using this new compound, called cysmethynil. Their finding, reported in the March 22, 2005, issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of...

New Mixing Method for Microchip-Sized Labs

"Because up to 75 percent of breast cancerpatients have an abnormality in a specific cell signaling pathway,drugs that target different molecules along that pathway may beespecially effective for treating the disease, says a researcher fromThe University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center." A clearer picture is now emergingabout the importance of the phosphatidylinositol 3 kinase...