Navarre researcher, Jaione Valle Turrillas, has identified two genes that could help as targets for pharmaceutical drugs that fight the Staphylococcus aureus “one of the bacteria which causes most infections in medical implants”. The results of her research have been published in her PhD thesis, “The role of the global regulators SarA and õB in Staphylococcus aureus biofilm formation”, defended at the Public University of Navarre.
Bacterias a thousand time more resistant
The recently launched EU project ’New Media for a New Millennium’ (NM2) is developing a set of software tools aimed at creating a new media genre. In the same way that TV did not just provide radio with pictures, NM2 aims to be the catalyst for entirely new genres of audiovisual media.
The project will enable viewers to watch a personalised production from a larger pool of original content. By illustration, viewers could elect to watch a short romantic production of a mov
Supposed psychic powers that enable people to see auras around others may simply be a quirk of the brain, according to a University College London (UCL) study of a rare form of synaesthesia where some people see colourful ‘auras’ around their loved ones.
The case study, reported in the October issue of Cognitive Neuropsychology, shows how some people can experience colours in response to people they know or words that evoke emotions – a condition known as emotion-colour synaesthe
Waiting 30 seconds to two minutes after birth to cut the umbilical cord of a premature baby appears to lessen chances of bleeding in the newborn’s brain and reduce the need for transfusions, according to a new review of research.
Standard practice for preterm babies is to cut the cord as soon as possible, often within 10 to 15 seconds. A systematic review finds that delaying the clamping rather than doing it immediately also reduces anemia and increases blood pressure and blood v
The malaria vaccine reported today to reduce life-threatening cases of the parasitic disease among children in Mozambique is based on the pioneering research of Drs. Ruth and Victor Nussenzweig and their colleagues at NYU School of Medicine.
Ruth Nussenzweig, Doc en Med, Ph.D., the C.V. Starr Professor of Medical and Molecular Parasitology, and her husband, Victor Nussenzweig, M.D., Ph.D., the Hermann M. Biggs Professor of Preventive Medicine, have devoted decades of research
Morphogens are molecules that play a role in the development of organs
Scientists at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center believe they have answered some critical questions that address how signaling molecules, called morphogens, work. Morphogens are secreting signaling molecules that play a key role in the formation of the shape and size of organs. For example, these molecules play a role in determining the bean-like shape of human kidneys. But when these molecules mal
Female mice that are abnormally small due to gene “knockout” technology are also bad mothers whose poor parenting skills cause their young to die within a day or two of birth, scientists report this week in the on-line edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Since Chawnshang Chang, Ph.D., cloned the gene for testicular orphan receptor 4 (TR4) 10 years ago, he and other scientists have tried to learn its function – scientists call it an “orphan” recept
Plant-eating insects inhabit all forest ecosystems, but sometimes their numbers explode, resulting in massive tree defoliation. In the October issue of the Journal of Tropical Ecology researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) associate a severe moth outbreak with drought conditions following the 1997-1998 El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event in a dry lowland forest near Panama’s Pacific coast. If ENSO events become more common, repeated herbivore outbreaks might a
There is increasing evidence suggesting that allergic-response diseases such as asthma, perennial rhinitis, and atopic dermatitis result from proteolytic or other enzymatic activity in common allergens. Dust is commonly allergenic, and to investigate the presence of active proteases in dust, researchers led by Jennifer Harris at The Scripps Research Institute and Nicolas Winssinger at the Université Louis Pasteur examined an extract derived from dust mites. The researchers devised and used a novel
The evolution of resistance to currently prescribed HIV-1 protease inhibitors is devastating to patients and is surprising given the way these drugs work. Protease inhibitors are all small-molecule, competitive, active-site inhibitors–low molecular weight compounds that fit squarely in the center of the active site of HIV-1 protease and prevent protein processing that is essential to the replication of the virus. It would seem as though mutations occurring in the protease that prevent drug bindin
Along with five European academic laboratories, researchers from the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) connected to Ghent University are accelerating the study of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana.
Taking advantage of the new RNAi technology, they are able to study the function of genes with the aid of specially designed fragments that turn off the corresponding genes. The scientists are building a collection of such fragments in Arabidopsis. Their ul
A brain protein already known to play a central role in the “feast or fast” signaling that controls the urge to eat has now been found to influence appetite in a second way. The discovery identifies a potential new target for drugs against obesity.
Earlier research has shown that this protein, called MC4R, is a receptor on neurons in the hypothalamus region of the brain and receives signals through at least two pathways about the status of the body’s fat reserves. If fat
Mitochondrial survivin inhibits apoptosis and promotes tumorigenesis
As cancer progresses, cancer cells acquire the ability to become resistant to programmed-cell-death, called apoptosis. Understanding the molecular mechanisms involved in the regulation of apoptosis is key for developing proper cancer therapies. Survivin is a member of a family of proteins that are inhibitors of apoptosis (IAPs), but the means by which survivin inhibits apoptosis remains largely unknown. Dario
Requirement for sphingosine 1–phosphate receptor-1 in tumor angiogenesis demonstrated by in vivo RNA interference
Tumor growth and metastasis require new blood ves-sel growth, a process called angiogenesis. There are many factors involved in the nor-mal growth and stabilization of new blood vessels. One of these, sphingosine 1-phosphate receptor 1 (S1P1), is required during embryonic development to stabilize new blood vessels. Timothy Hla and colleagues, from the University of Con
Human mitochondrial peptide deformylase, a new anticancer target of actinonin-based antibiotics
A molecular mechanism that was formerly thought to be important only in bacteria has now been shown to be a potential target for an anticancer therapy based on antibiotic use. David Scheinberg and colleagues, at the Sloan-Kettering Institute, have been investigating an enzyme in humans that is similar to one in bacteria called peptide deformylase (Pdf) and have found that an antibioti
Chemical signatures provide picture of internal changes leading to the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens
New tools for monitoring volcanoes may be developed with help from a study on Mount St. Helens published this week (Oct. 14) in Science Express by an international team of geoscientists, including University of Oregon volcanologist Katharine Cashman.
The study on geochemical precursors to volcanic activity leading to the cataclysmic eruption of the southwestern Washingt
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