A fruit fly gene called radish, and the newly identified protein it encodes, have opened doors to understanding the genes and neuronal networks that govern a special type of memory, termed anesthesia-resistant memory. Researchers had previously known that for most animals — not just humans — loss of consciousness from anesthesia causes amnesia for recently experienced events. In contrast, for reasons that are not well understood, older memories are resistant to the effects of anesthesia. With the h
Studies of natural antibiotics in our mouths may lead to new treatments for oral infections, as well as ways to boost the infection-fighting powers of mouthwashes, denture coatings, and wound dressings, according to a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). These compounds, called beta-defensins, are key components of our innate immune system.
“Innate immunity describes the defenses that we’re are born with; they’re cod
Amylin, a hormone secreted by the same cells that produce insulin in the pancreas, prevents bone loss, said Baylor College of Medicine researchers and an international group of collaborators in a report in today’s issue of the Journal of Cell Biology.
The finding may point the way toward treatments for osteoporosis, a disease of low bone mass that usually affects post-menopausal women but that is also observed in Type 1 diabetes patients, said Dr. Gèrard Karsenty, professor of molecular
Thirty years ago the determination of a protein structure required years of effort and typically was sufficient for a Ph.D. thesis. Today, due to advances in synchrotron X-ray sources and detectors, protein crystal structures can be calculated in just hours, “enabling many types of studies that were previously inconceivable,” according to a leading researcher at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
Sol Gruner, a Cornell physics professor and an expert in designing and building fast, large-area
Scientists at the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center have scientifically validated for the first time that stem cells in umbilical cord blood can infiltrate damaged heart tissue and transform themselves into the kind of heart cells needed to halt further damage.
Clinical proof of this principle has existed for a decade, as Duke physicians have used cord blood to correct heart, brain and liver defects in children with rare metabolic diseases. But until now they lacked the molecular evidence t
Danish researchers found that sun exposure behaviors and personal characteristics are correlated with the dose of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) a person receives, according to a report in the February issue of The Archives of Dermatology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
UVR exposure is a well-known risk factor for developing skin cancer, according to the article. Guidelines of safe limits of UVR exposure have been issued by many international health organizations. These limits are determin
Ninety percent cut in death risk from aspirin, beta blocker, ACE inhibitor and statin
An inexpensive cocktail of four tiny pills can make a big difference in heart patients’ death risk, a new University of Michigan study finds. And the life-saving effect of the four-drug regimen is bigger than the sum of its parts.
In the new paper, U-M Cardiovascular Center researchers report that heart attack and unstable angina patients who were prescribed all four types of proven medica
For some time, researchers have known that people with diabetes have a greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia than those without diabetes, but the exact cause of this link has not been known. Now, a new study by researchers in Cologne, Germany, and at Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, to be published this week online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that insulin resistance in brain cells can affect how they function, causing som
Molecular Probes technology powers breakthrough in drug discovery
Panama’s International Cooperative Biodiversity Group (ICBG) announces the development of a new test for identification of antimalarial compounds with wide applicability in the developing world. The assay for plant-derived compounds also can be used to detect anti-plasmodial compounds from synthetic or natural sources. Initial results of the research are published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hy
The work offers potential insights into disease processes, including cancer
Researchers at Jefferson Medical College and Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center are gaining a better understanding of the cues that help guide cells to the right places in developing embryos. Steven Farber, Ph.D., assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, and his co-workers have found that statins, the group of anti-cholestero
MADISON-Mutations that allow AIDS viruses to escape detection by the immune system may also hinder the viruses’ ability to grow after transmission to new hosts, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison announced this week in the journal Nature Medicine.
The discovery may help researchers design vaccines that exploit the notorious mutability of HIV by training the immune system to attack the virus where it’s most vulnerable. The work appears alongside a study of HIV-infected people
Like most persistent viruses, HIV uses a variety of strategies to counteract its host’s response to infection. HIV infects the very cells that coordinate the immune response, which compromises the immune system and leaves the body susceptible to normally harmless microorganisms. It is these opportunistic infections, rather than the virus itself, that make HIV so deadly. Victor Appay and colleagues now show that an important effect of persistent HIV infection is generally elevated immune activati
Cancer often begins with mutations in tumor suppressor pathways. Tumor suppressor genes–such as p53–arrest cell growth and induce apoptosis (programmed cell death) in response to cellular stress, such as chromosomal damage. Cells with p53 mutations can escape these constraints, leading to the uncontrolled growth characteristic of “immortal” cancer cells. Nearly all types of tumors have mutations in the p53 pathway, many of them in the p53 gene itself. Treatments focused on restoring p53 function–w
In this month’s essay, Tim Hubbard and Jamie Love argue that we need a better way to research and develop new drugs. They contend that the existing system for drug development–rooted within the pharmaceutical industry–is inefficient and unsustainable. Drugs are too expensive and are beyond the reach of many people in the developed as well as the developing world.
The inadequacies in the current system, suggest Hubbard and Love, are a consequence of a business model that uses a single
For his PhD thesis, the engineer, Jorge Teniente Vallinas, has developed a method for designing antennas used in satellites such as Hispasat. The PhD, at the Public University of Navarre, was awarded the second prize in the latest edition of the Rosina Ribalta Awards from the Epson Ibérica Foundation for the best PhD thesis in the field of Information and Communications Technology.
The aims of this doctoral thesis were, on the one hand, to establish the bases for the design of Gaussian prof
An international team of astronomers may have set a new record in discovering what is the most distant known galaxy in the Universe. Located an estimated 13 billion light-years away, the object is being viewed at a time only 750 million years after the big bang, when the Universe was barely 5 percent of its current age.
The primeval galaxy was identified by combining the power of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and CARA’s W. M. Keck Telescopes on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. These great obs
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