Virginia Commonwealth University immunologists studying mast cells, known to play a central role in asthma and allergic disease, have identified a hormone-like molecule that can kill these cells by programming them to die in studies with mice.
The findings move researchers another step closer to understanding the life cycle of mast cells, and may help researchers develop new treatments for allergy and inflammatory responses in arthritis, multiple sclerosis and heart disease.
The first clinical trial of a biologic nanoparticle designed to give back to cancer patients the tumor-busting gene they have lost is expected to start in September at Georgetown University Medical Center.
The phase I clinical study will enroll 20 patients with advanced solid cancers (including most common tumor types), and is the culmination of more than a decade of work by a team of researchers led by Professor Esther H. Chang, Ph.D. at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Ce
Discovery has implications for control of mosquitoes, malaria and West Nile Virus
Prior to coming to Nevada 16 years ago, David Schooley was a key figure at a small company in Palo Alto, Calif. that developed methoprene, an insecticide that halts the maturation of insect larvae to adults.
Methoprene, which has the same effect as an insect hormone called juvenile hormone, also stops the insect from reproducing. It is being used heavily throughout the United S
Investigators at the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA examining responses to cocaine and methamphetamine use find distinct differences in onset, pattern and duration.
Subjective, or self-reported, responses to cocaine peak and decline more rapidly than those of methamphetamine, the study shows. Cardiovascular responses to the two stimulants are similar at onset but responses to cocaine decline more rapidly.
In press with the pee
Heat has always been a problem for fuel cells. There’s usually either too much (ceramic fuel cells) for certain portable uses, such as automobiles or electronics, or too little (polymer fuel cells) to be efficient.
While polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells are widely considered the most promising fuel cells for portable use, their low operating temperature and consequent low efficiency have blocked their jump from promising technology to practical technology.
Rutgers’ Bonnie Firestein likens nerve cells to trees — some are short and bushy with many branches while others are tall with a few branches coming out of one or two main trunks. Different branching patterns correlate with specific disorders and Firestein’s quest is to discover how these dissimilar patterns come about and why.
A new paper by Firestein and her colleagues at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, examines the role of the protein snapin in ner
BU geographer shows dual approach informs farmers’ decisions, yields better harvests
It’s not enough just to let subsistence farmers in Zimbabwe know it will be a dry or wet growing season, says new research from a team led by Boston University’s Anthony Patt. You should back up that information with opportunities for the farmers to meet together and ask questions about the forecasts. The study’s findings could aid farmers in regions strongly influenced by large glob
Columbia University Medical Center and New York State Psychiatric Institute Researchers
Illustrate Severe Risk in Popular Procedure, Identify Safer Procedure
An increasingly common method of heroin detoxification under general anesthesia is ineffective and unsafe, according to a study by psychiatrists at Columbia University Medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia.
The study, published in the August 24 Journal of the American Medical
New databases give researchers a look into processes inside the Earth’s mantle
Researchers at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory recently resolved a long-standing contradiction about the workings of the deep Earth. For years, many geochemists have argued that parts of the deep mantle remain unchanged since the formation of the Earth, whereas many geophysicists and geodynamicists have held that the entire mantle has been convecting (moving and mixing) over geo
New images suggest that the Earth’s lower oceanic crust is generated from multiple magma sources
Some of the highest quality images ever taken of the Earth’s lower crust reveal that the upper and lower crust form in two distinctly different ways. A team led by researchers from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory will publish the results of their work in the August 25 issue of the journal Nature.
The Earth’s oceanic crust is formed from magma bodies lo
Cornell researchers say double knocks may be ’soundprints’ of ivory-bills
The public is invited to join in, listen and help decipher the sounds of the ivory-billed woodpecker By Simeon Moss
Now hear this: After analyzing more than 18,000 hours of recordings from the swampy forests of eastern Arkansas, researchers at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology at Cornell University have released recordings offering further evidence — including the legendary bird’s dist
Using muscle tissue from tarantulas, an HHMI international research scholar and his colleagues have figured out the detailed structure and arrangement of the miniature molecular motors that control movement. Their work, which takes advantage of a new technique for visualizing tissues in their natural state, provides new insights into the molecular basis of muscle relaxation, and perhaps its activation too.
“We have solved the structure of the array of miniature motors that for
Chemists at Ohio State University have gained new insight into how sunlight affects DNA. And what they found overturns ideas about genetic mutation that originated decades ago.
In the current issue of the journal Nature, Bern Kohler and his colleagues report that DNA dissipates the energy from ultraviolet (UV) radiation in a kind of energy wave that travels up the edge of the DNA molecule, as if the energy were climbing one side of the helical DNA “ladder.”
The f
New research from Sweden has shown that psychological stress does not appear to influence the outcome of IVF – good news for women who fear that the understandable anxiety that they suffer during fertility treatment might damage their chances of conceiving.
“This means that we can use these findings to reassure women and this information should, in itself, help to reduce their stress and worry levels,” said lead author Dr Lisbeth Anderheim whose team’s research is reported t
An international team of transplant physicians has shown that the investigational drug belatacept (LEA29Y) preserves transplanted kidney function as effectively as cyclosporine, the drug most commonly used to prevent the immune system from rejecting transplanted organs. At the same time, belatacept avoids many of the toxic side effects that adversely affect kidney function, blood pressure and cholesterol levels of patients undergoing long-term anti-rejection therapy with immunosuppressant drug
Fibromyalgia patients treated with six sessions of acupuncture experienced significant symptomatic improvement compared to a group given simulated acupuncture sessions according to a new Mayo Clinic study. The findings will be presented at the 11th World Congress of the International Association for the Study of Pain in Sydney, Australia.
“This study shows there is something real about acupuncture and its effects on fibromyalgia,” says David Martin, M.D., Ph.D., Mayo Clinic anesthesio
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