Scientists seek answers on what activates deadly anthrax spores
Scientists at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and three other institutions are setting out to find what activates the spores in anthrax, the deadly bacterial infection that is back in the news. "A key aspect of anthrax spore biology concerns the germination process through which the dormant spore becomes a reproductive, disease-causing bacterium," explained Al Claiborne, Ph.D...Using nanoparticles, in vivo gene therapy activates brain stem cells
Using customized nanoparticles that they developed, University at Buffalo scientists have for the first time delivered genes into the brains of living mice with an efficiency that is similar to, or better than, viral vectors and with no observable toxic effect, according to a paper published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper describes how the UB scient...Scientists observe how a close bond activates the immune system
The immune system is highly complex. The cast of characters alone required to marshal an immune response to a foreign invader can number in the millions as the body's soldiers, T cells, are called into action. What triggers this complex response begins when T cells and dendritic cells, another type of immune cell, form a kind of molecular embrace, or immunological synapse, to relay information ab...Gene linked to rare disease activates fat breakdown
A gene earlier linked to a rare disease plays a critical role in the body's "finely tuned balance" of fat storage and break down, new evidence reported in the May Cell Metabolism reveals. The findings elucidate the mechanism underlying healthy fat metabolism and explain why people with the genetic condition known as Chanarin-Dorfman Syndrome (CDS), who carry a mutant version of the gene, suffer f...Timing of Food Consumption Activates Genes in Specific Brain Area
Giving up your regular late-night snack may be hard, and not just because it’s a routine. The habit may genetically change an area of the brain to expect the food// at that time, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered. By training mice to eat at a time when they normally wouldn’t, the researchers found that food turns on body-clock genes in a particular area of...Flash-heating Inactivates HIV in Breast Milk: Study
A study by researchers at the Berkeley and Davis campuses of the University of California has found that flash-heating breast milk infected with HIV successfully inactivates the free-floating virus. The researchers hope that this technique - heating a glass jar of expressed breast milk in a pan of water over a flame or single burner - will provide hope that mothers with HIV in dev...