Today, Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON) and Devgen N.V. announced a research and development collaboration to develop varieties of crop plants with improved resistance against insect pests.
“This product-focused collaboration provides our researchers with novel approaches and complementary technologies to develop new ways to control insect pests in corn, cotton and soybean,” said Robert T. Fraley, Ph.D., Monsanto executive vice president and chief technology officer.
Pierre Hoch
Researchers from the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) at Ghent University are joining the fight against chronic intestinal disease with a genetically modified bacterium (Lactococcus lactis). The modified bacterium is able to produce medication right in the intestine. This is often the crux of the problem: a number of medicines are presumed to be effective, but until now it has been impossible to get them into the intestine in a simple manner. The researchers have shown t
The simplest molecule presents the best opportunity for energy. With global energy demands projected to rise 66% by 2030, the world desperately needs alternatives to fossil fuels. Hydrogen power, a recent media phenomenon, presents an enticing alternative – one whose development reaches much further back than most imagine. -When people hear ‘hydrogen power,’ they don’t realize that we’ve been working on it for 25 years, says Trygve Riis, the Norwegian chairman of the International Energy Agency’s
University of Michigan dentistry student Sara Kellogg believes dentists could save lives simply by taking a few minutes to measure the blood pressure of every patient.
This isn’t just the opinion of one dentist-to-be. Kellogg has data to back it up. In an article in the Sept. 10 issue of the Journal of Dental Education, Kellogg reports that after reviewing the records of patients treated at U-M School of Dentistry clinics in 1999, she found about one third had high blood pressure. M
Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have identified a telltale change in cellular machinery that could help clinicians predict whether prostate cancers are likely to spread or remain relatively harmless in the prostate.
The researchers found that a cellular signaling molecule called Hedgehog, which drives normal development and regeneration of prostate tissue, is greatly activated in prostate cancers. This elevated activity distinguishes dangerous metastatic cancers – those t
Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey are closely watching the long, thin barrier islands that comprise the Gulf of Mexico coast of west Florida as Hurricane Ivan approaches. These islands are particularly vulnerable to storm surge and coastal change during hurricanes because of their low elevation. New elevation maps show just how vulnerable.
“If Hurricane Ivan comes ashore on west Florida’s barrier islands as a major hurricane, Category 3 or stronger, most of the coast has the potenti
Studies demonstrate that trees keep pollutants out of streams, help process pollutants in them
A team of researchers led by scientists from the Stroud Water Research Center in Avondale, Pa., has discovered that streamside (or riparian) forests play a critical – and previously unacknowledged – role in protecting the world’s fresh water.
Their findings, funded jointly by the National Science Foundation and Environmental Protection Agency and published online this week in
Biologists take for granted that the limbs and branches of the tree of life – painstakingly constructed since Linnaeus started classifying organisms 270 years ago – are basically correct. New genetic studies, the thinking goes, will only prune the twigs, perhaps shuffling around a few species here and there.
Hence the surprise when a new University of California, Berkeley, study of the largest family of salamanders produced a genetic family tree totally inconsistent with the accepted
Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered a possible way to distinguish lethal metastatic prostate cancers from those restricted to the walnut-size organ.
If future studies show their test — measuring the level of activity of a signaling pathway called Hedgehog — can predict which prostate cancers will spread, the results could revolutionize decision making processes for prostate cancer patients, the researchers say.
Most prostate cancers grow slowly, making “watchful wai
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a material that may one day allow patients to forgo daily injections and pills and receive prescriptions instead through micro-thin implantable films that release medication according to changes in temperature. The research, detailing results from testing insulin release in the lab, appears in the September 13 edition of the journal, Biomacromolecules.
“We loaded insulin in layers of microgel films in the lab and rel
Liver cancer genes cluster into two subsets that correlate to survival
An analysis of the gene expression patterns of 91 unrelated liver tumors revealed two distinctive subclasses highly associated with patient survival, according to a new study published in the September 2004 issue of Hepatology.
Hepatology, the official journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., is available online via Wiley InterScience at
Researchers have discovered a critical protein that regulates the growth and activation of neural connections in the brain. The protein functions in the developing brain, where it controls the sprouting of new connections and stimulates otherwise silent connections among immature neurons, and potentially in the mature brain as well, where it may play a role in memory formation.
The researchers published their discovery of the protein, called dendrite arborization and synapse matura
May serve as new target for antiviral drugs
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have produced the first molecular-scale images of DNA binding to an adenovirus enzyme — a step they believe is essential for the virus to cause infection. The images, which appear on the cover of the October 2004 issue of Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, show how binding to DNA may stimulate the enzyme and are alre
A new approach for assessing glaucoma risk factors could be the first step in helping ophthalmologists determine the risk of progression from ocular hypertension to glaucoma and blindness, according to an article published today in the September issue of the American Journal of Ophthalmology.
This new approach, which is based on the risk assessment principles advanced by the coronary heart disease model, could help physicians decide the level of risk in an individual patient and whe
They hadn’t planned it, but Meriwether Lewis and William Clark picked a fine time for a road trip when they set out to find a water route across the American Northwest two centuries ago.
Leading a small group of explorers, known as the Corps of Discovery, Lewis and Clark experienced favorable climatic conditions from 1804 to 1806 in search of an inland “Northwest Passage,” according to a Georgia State University professor.
The timing of the trip was crucial because ha
A VTI study performed in the driving simulator shows that using a mobile phone with a handsfree kit is no safer in traffic than using a hand-held mobile phone.
The study shows that the attention of drivers is negatively influenced by a telephone conversation, whether it is with a handsfree or hand-held mobile phone. The participants were however a lot more positive about using a handsfree than a hand-held phone while driving. They also had the impression that their driving performa
Feedback
