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Scientists ID molecular 'switch' in liver that triggers harmful effects of saturated and trans fats

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers have identified a molecular mechanism in the liver that explains, for the first time, how consuming foods rich in saturated fats and trans-fatty acids causes elevated blood levels of cholesterol and triglycerides and increases one's risk of heart disease and certain cancers. In the Jan. 28 issue of Cell, scientists led by Bruce Spiegelman, PhD, rep...

Study Demonstrates Gene Expression Microarrays are Comparable and Reproducible

Foreveryone doing or reading a paper about microarray-based experiments,reproductibility, especially inter-lab, is the #1 concern. Can I trustthese results? If I redo the same experiment in one month, will I beable to compare both? The NIH recently demonstrated that microarrays experiments performed in d...

Antibiotic Resistant Bacterium Uses Sonar-like Strategy to “See?Enemies or Prey

For the first time, scientists have foundthat bacteria can use a Sonar-like system to spot other cells (eithernormal body cells or other bacteria) and target them for destruction.Reported in the December 24 issue of Science, this finding explains howsome bacteria know when to produce a toxin that makes infection moresevere. It may lead to the design of new toxin inhibitors. “Blocking orinte...

Scientists collaborate to assess health of global environment

For the first time, a group of scientists has accomplished the daunting task of evaluating the status of all of the ecosystems on Earth, and the outlook is troubling. Commissioned by the United Nations in 2001, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment program will issue its primary report on March 30 during press conferences in London, Washington, D.C., Tokyo, Beijing, New Delhi, Brasilia, Cai...

TEL2 gene cooperates with MYC gene to provoke B-cell lymphomas

The genes TEL2 and MYC cooperate with each other to promote pediatric cases of the immune system cancer B-cell lymphoma. This finding, from investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, is published in the current issue of Molecular Cell Biology (MCB). B-cell lymphoma is a cancer in which the antibody-producing cells (B lymphocytes) multiply uncontrollably and crowd out other blo...

Affymetrix and the Karolinska Institutet Announce Translational Medicine Strategic Alliance

Affymetrix Inc. (Nasdaq: AFFX - News) and Karolinska Institutet announced today that they have entered into a strategic alliance designed to improve healthcare by accelerating the translation of basic genetic research into tools for better diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. During the next five years the projects include genetic analyses and measurement of gene expression in patients wi...

Affymetrix and Stratagene Announce Strategic Software Alliance

announced today that they have entered into a non-exclusive strategic alliance under which Stratagene will provide Affymetrix customers with new software solutions for GeneChip(R) data analysis. As part of this agreement, Stratagene will develop a new software package for...

Rush Physicians Using Gene Therapy For Heart Patients With Moderate To Severe Chest Pains Who Do Not Benefit From Other Treatments

Individuals with moderate to severe chest pains (angina) who have not found relief from medication may benefit from a new gene therapy approach being used by cardiologists at Rush University Medical Center to grow new blood vessels in the heart. The phase II clinical research study uses vascular endothelial growth factor-2 (VEGF-2) in the form of a solution containing a DNA plasmid that i...

Genrate: a generative model that finds and scores new genes and exons in genomic microarray data

Abstract : Recently, researchers have made some progress in using microarrays to validate predicted exons in genome sequence and find new gene structures. However, current methods rely on separately making threshold-based decisions on intensity of expression, similarity of expression profiles, and arrangements of exons in the genome. We have taken a Bayesian approach and developed GenRate,...

Pathogen-Mimicking Vaccine As Strategy For Cancer Therapy

Results from the first clinical trial of a therapeutic cancer vaccine combining the synthetic bacterial DNA sequence, CpG 7909 (ProMuneTM, Coley Pharmaceutical), with a peptide antigen were reported today in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The paper shows that the CpG 7909 DNA sequence is safe, and increases the immune system's ability to recognize and destroy cancer cells. The Phase I stu...

Molecular Motors Cooperate In Moving Cellular Cargo, Study Shows

Researchers using an extremely fast and accurate imaging technique have shed light on the tiny movements of molecular motors that shuttle material within living cells. The motors cooperate in a delicate choreography of steps, rather than engaging in the brute-force tug of war many scientists had imagined. "We discovered that two molecular motors -- dynein and kinesin -- do not compete for...

Anti cancer virotherapy well tolerated in first human administration, research finds

An international medical conference here heard that an Australian developed anti-cancer therapy based on the use of a common cold virus to control cancer cell growth has begun safety testing in human subjects. The research was presented to the third International Meeting on Replicating Oncolytic Virus Therapeutics, on Friday 11 March by Newcastle University associate professor, Darren Sha...

Medical molecules designed to respond to visible light that can penetrate tissue

If you have ever covered a flashlight with your hand and seen the red light that still comes through, then you have seen light in the therapeutic window ?that magic wavelength that is not absorbed or reflected away by tissue. Scientists believe that they can use light at that wavelength to signal manmade molecules to release drugs at disease sites in the body. Such possibilities will be d...

Navigating an integrated yeast network

Scientists have for the first time mapped multiple complex biological interactions in a yeast cell in a simple graphical form, enhancing our understanding of how the networks of interaction by which components of a cell influence one another. New research published in the Open Access journal Journal of Biology shows that such maps can also reveal cryptic interactions and enable accurate predictio...

Reservoirs may accelerate the spread of invasive aquatic species, researchers say

Just as disturbance makes a landscape susceptible to invasion by alien plant species, the construction of reservoirs around the globe could be contributing to the accelerating spread of exotic aquatic species, according to a Forum article in the June 2005 issue of BioScience. John A. Havel of Southwest Missouri State University and Carol Eunmi Lee and M. Jake Vander Zanden of the University of Wi...

Agilent Technologies new genome analysis technology set to accelerate Australia fight against mesothelioma

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) today announced that its breakthrough Human Genome CGH Microarray technology will be used by researchers at Melbourne's Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in a three-year study designed to better understand mesothelioma, a cancer found in the lining of the chest, the abdominal cavity and around the heart, usually caused by exposure to asbestos. Due to its act...

Scientists generate patient-specific stem cells, Science study says

Scientists have isolated the first human embryonic stem cell lines specifically tailored to match the nuclear DNA of patients, both males and females of various ages, suffering from disease or spinal cord injury. These ce...

New strategies to reduce hospital-aquired infections

The current goal to reduce sickness and death from infections that patients acquire in hospitals has created a renewed focus on identifying ways to reduce the problem at its source. Hospital water for drinking, bathing, showering, to make ice cubes or to rinse medical equipment is increasingly being recognized as a significant source of microbes that may contribute to many of these life-threateni...

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...

Gene silencing technique offers new strategy for treating, curing disease

A new technique aimed at directly controlling the expression of genes by turning them on or off at the DNA level could lead to drugs for the treatment or cure of many diseases, say researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center. "Virtually every disease starts at the level of malfunctioning gene expression, or viral or bacterial gene expression," said Dr. David Corey, professor of pharmacol...

Study Finds Moderate Hypothermia A Safe Treatment For Traumatic Brain Injury In Kids

A first-of-its-kind multi-center trial has shown that cooling the body can have positive affects on children who suffered traumatic brain injury. The study's lead investigator, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh neurosurgeon P. David Adelson, MD, and fellow researchers determined that induced moderate hypothermia initiated after severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a safe therapeutic inte...

TGen awarded $7.1 million to accelerate brain disease research

The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) today announced the receipt of a $7.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to continue a project designed to uncover the genetic causes of neurological and mental health disorders using sophisticated genetic scanning technologies. This award is part of a greater $25 million grant that TGen will share with three other micro...

Redesigned protein accelerates blood clotting

Study holds hope for next generation hemophilia treatment Researchers have doubled the potency of a protein that drives blood to clot, according to research to be published in the July 26 edition of Biochemistry. The study results may have profound implications for the treatment of hemophilia, the inherited blood disorder that causes easy or excessive bleeding in 30,000 Americans. In...

High rates of sexually transmitted infections found in young drug users

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and other institutions found high rates of herpes simplex virus 2 and syphilis among young drug users in Baltimore, Md. The study found that women had significantly higher rates compared to their male counterparts, but did not find significant differences between injection drug users and non-injection drug users. Few of the infect...

Rehydrate -- your RNA needs it

Water, that molecule-of-all-trades, is famous for its roles in shaping the Earth, sustaining living creatures and serving as a universal solvent. Now, researchers at the University of Michigan and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic have uncovered two previously unknown roles for water in RNA enzymes, molecules which themselves play critical roles in living cells and show promi...

Cholera pathogen reveals how bacteria generate energy to live

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered new details about how bacteria generate energy to live. In two recently published papers, the scientists add key specifics to the molecular mechanism behind the pathogen that causes cholera. The work could provide a better understanding of this pathogen, while also offering insight into how cells transform energy from the environment...

Endocannabinoids ?the brain's cannabis ?demonstrate novel modes of action to stress

Three separate research team reports ?one from Louisiana, one from Japan and one from Scotland ?are presenting independent research results pointing to involvement of endocannabinoids as a novel neural messenger in various stress-related situations with possible applications in eating, disease treatment and social behavior. The team from...

Microreactor efficiently regenerates cofactors for biocatalysis

One of the longstanding challenges in the synthesis of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and food additives is the continuous regeneration of molecules called cofactors that permit the synthesis through inexpensive and environmentally friendly biocatalytic processes. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Universite Paul Sabatier in Toulouse, France...

For first time, brain cells generated in a dish

Regenerative medicine scientists at the University of Florida's McKnight Brain Institute have created a system in rodent models that for the first time duplicates neurogenesis -- the process of generating new brain cells -- in a dish. Writing in today's (June 13) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers describe a cell culture method that holds the promise of producing...

UNC computer, marine scientists collaborate to predict flow of toxic waters from Katrina

In the immediate wake of Hurricane Katrina, scientists and research centers from across the country came together to generate information on the contaminated floodwaters and offer it to hazardous materials experts and public health officials. In a matter of hours, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Marine Sciences Program and Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), together...

AIDS expert says global strategy needed to combat feminization of HIV/AIDS

Thomas C. Quinn, M.D., a Johns Hopkins physician and scientist, who has spent the best part of the last 25 years leading major efforts to combat HIV and AIDS throughout the world, is calling for global strategies and resources to confront the rapid "feminization" of the AIDS pandemic. Quinn, a professor of infectious diseases at Hopkins and a senior investigator at the National Institute o...

Hormones and growth: The control of body size and developmental growth rate in fruit flies

A pair of research papers published this week report findings that increase our understanding of how an organism's body size is determined and how the speed of its development is controlled. In particular, the work sheds light on the molecular and cellular pathways that act to convey information about a growing organism's size, as well as on pathways that use that information to correctly time cr...

Gene loss accelerates aging

Researchers have discovered that the loss of a gene called p63 accelerates aging in mice. Similar versions of the gene are present in many organisms, including humans. Therefore, the p63 gene is likely to play a fundamental biological role in aging-related processes. "To study how the p63 gene works, we devised a system for eliminating it from adult mouse tissues. What struck us right away...

MRSA study demonstrates need for frequent hand washing and environmental disinfection in health care settings

A major cause of hospital-acquired infections can persist for days and even weeks on environmental surfaces found in healthcare settings, including bed linens, computer keyboard covers and acrylic fingernails, according to research presented today at the 105th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a major cause of ho...

Traditional models underestimate extinction rates

Last year, the World Conservation Union reported an unprecedented decline in biodiversity, with nearly 16,000 species facing extinction. The biggest threat to most species is loss of habitat. And as habitat loss and degradation proceed nearly unabated, the need to accurately predict the population dynamics and extinction risk of potentially endangered species has never been greater. In a new stud...

UCSD discovery may provide novel method to generate medically useful proteins

A team led by University of California, San Diego biochemists has discovered the mechanism by which a simple organism can produce 10 trillion varieties of a single protein, a finding that provides a new tool to develop novel drugs. In the September 18 advance on-line publication of the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, the researchers describe the mechanism by which a virus...

'Patient-choice' C-section rate rises 36%: HealthGrades study

More women choosing C-sections when no medical necessity exists - The number of pregnant women choosing to have a "patient-choice" Cesarean section (C-section) rose by 36.6 percent from 2001 to 2003, according to a study released today by HealthGrades, the leading provider of independent healt...

Tissue regeneration operates differently than expected

Max Planck researchers in Bad Nauheim discover the mechanism by which adult stem cells are integrated into skeletal or heart muscle tissue. There is disagreement, however, about the mechanism on which repair processes are based. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim, Germany, in co-operation with colleagues from Martin Luther University in Halle...

Preventing a pandemic: Study suggests strategies for containing a flu outbreak

Though quick to caution about the many things that could go wrong, researchers say that it may be possible to contain a Southeast Asian outbreak of avian influenza in humans, buying precious time for the production of a vaccine. Using a computer model to simulate an outbreak in a rural Southeast Asian population, the scientists have shown how a combination of strategies, including targeted...

Reducing antibiotic use lowers rates of drug-resistant bacteria

Fewer antibiotic prescriptions leads to fewer "superbugs." That's the take-home message behind a new study in the Oct. 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online. The study found that reducing antibiotic use for pediatric respiratory tract infections resulted in lower rates of carriage of drug-resistant bacteria. Drug-resistant bacteria, commonly called "superbugs," ar...