Every now and then a new, nasty version of the influenza virus sweeps across the world. Health experts have known for a long time that these worldwide outbreaks of fatal disease start in birds. Now scientists are uncovering for the first time the secrets of the viruses which can make the jump from birds to humans, according to research to be presented tomorrow, Tuesday 30 March 2004, at the Society for General Microbiology’s meeting in Bath.
“Most bird flu viruses cannot normally infect
Researchers have developed a method to reconstitute bone marrow and blood cells from embryonic stem (ES) cells. As reported in The Journal of Experimental Medicine, this method was effective even in genetically mismatched mice. If the same is true in humans, this would remove the need to find genetically matched human bone-marrow donors for patients with leukemia, immune deficiencies and autoimmune diseases.
ES cells are cells derived from embryos that have the potential to grow into many d
Halting the development of certain pancreatic, ovarian, colon and lung cancers may be possible with therapy based on recent Purdue University research.
By investigating a single molecule that influences cell growth, a research group in the Purdue Cancer Center, including Brian S. Henriksen, has gained new insight into the chain of events that make some cancer cells divide uncontrollably – insight that may eventually lead to a way to break that chain, stopping cancer in its tracks. The molec
A protein critical in tadpole metamorphosis has role in human cancer
There’s something magical about tadpoles. The mere mention of this little creature sparks happy memories of children screaming with delight as they splash in a shallow stream trying to capture some of the tiny swimmers in a cup. The real magic happens as the children witness the metamorphosis from tadpole to frog.
Within the mystery of this transformation is a biological series of changes that among ot
University of Toronto researchers have shown that “designer molecules” can interact with the body’s insulin receptor, a step toward the development of an oral medication for diabetes.
U of T professors Lakshmi Kotra, Cecil Yip, Peter Ottensmeyer and Robert Batey have created the first small molecules using the three-dimensional structure of the insulin receptor. A receptor is the site on the surface of a cell to which molecules with specific tasks, such as hormones, attach themselves.
New Kingston University research could reduce the recovery time for lower limb amputees by helping health professionals chart patients’ progress more easily. Tom Geake, from Kingston’s Mobile Information and Network Technologies Research Centre, has designed a new method of interpreting results from the locomotor capabilities index, used by clinicians to assess amputees’ improvement in the four-week period after they have been fitted with a socket and artificial limb.
Using the index, ampute
Research from India published in this week’s issue of THE LANCET suggests that circumcised men could be over six times less likely than uncircumcised men to acquire HIV infection. The study also shows how the explanation for this decreased risk in circumcised men is likely to be biological rather than behavioural, with thin tissue in the foreskin being the likely target for viral activity.
Previous research has shown that circumcised men have a lower risk of HIV-1 infection than uncircumcis
Cancer researchers at the University of Dundee have just turned a common cancer belief on its head saying that a group of proteins previously believed to cause cancer can also be used in the fight against cancer.
Dr Neil Perkins and his team in the School of Life Sciences have identified that NF-kappaB a group of proteins present in every cell in the human body can actually assist some cancer therapies such as chemo and radio therapy. They believe that this discovery will allow clinicians to
Children with sickle cell disease – an inherited red blood-cell disorder – are living longer, dying less often from their disease and contracting fewer fatal infections than ever before, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas report.
Their study, which will appear in the June edition of the scientific journal Blood, is the first to evaluate survival rates of children receiving the most modern treatments for sickle cell disease. It’s also one of the largest published si
A research group at the University of Helsinki, Finland, has found a gene defect that causes hereditary colorectal cancer and defects in dentition. The finding was published online on March 23 in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
The groups led by professors Sinikka Pirinen and Irma Thesleff at the Institute of Dentistry and Institute of Biotechnology of the University of Helsinki are working on the genetic basis of hereditary dental aberrations .
The group identified a mutati
With prostate cancer the second leading cause of cancer deaths in men in many industrialised countries, a new diagnostic instrument offers the possibility of rapid and early warning detection and screening of this major killer.
The three-year IST programme-funded PAMELA project aimed to develop a new analytical instrument that allows very fast blood analysis to determine the presence and amount of prostate specific antigen (PSA) present – important for the follow-up of prostate cancer.
A possible link between cancer and toxins or poisons produced by bacteria has been suggested by King’s College London scientists, the Society for General Microbiology’s meeting in Bath will hear next week, Thursday 01 April 2004.
“As the molecular mechanisms of cancer are becoming better understood, the strong association between Helicobacter pylori and a stomach cancer, gastric adenocarcinoma, has shown that some cancers may start from bacterial infections”, says Professor Alistair Lax
Initial vaccine tested in model looks promising
An experimental plague vaccine proved 100 percent effective when tested in a new mouse model for plague infection developed by scientists at Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML), part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health. The scientists developed their model to mimic the natural transmission route of bubonic plague through the bites of infected fleas. The flea-to-mouse mod
Scientists at the University of Ulster are harnessing molecules produced naturally in the body to tackle one of the world’s major health problems – diabetes.
Their novel approach involves bioengineering gut peptides – molecules produced in the human intestine and released in response to feeding – to prolong their duration of action and, therefore, make them work more effectively.
The research by the internationally-recognised Diabetes Research Group at the University’s Coleraine c
It’s a bitter irony of cancer therapy: treatments powerful enough to kill tumor cells also harm healthy ones, causing side effects that diminish the quality of the lives that are saved.
Researchers at the University of Michigan’s Center for Biologic Nanotechnology hope to prevent that problem by developing “smart” drug delivery devices that will knock out cancer cells with lethal doses, leaving normal cells unharmed, and even reporting back on their success. A graduate student inv
Doctors are beginning the first test in the United States of a vaccine designed to protect people against one form of bird flu should an outbreak of the virus occur in humans. While the vaccine under study is not designed to protect against the precise bird-flu virus causing the current outbreak in poultry and in people, scientists will learn whether it protects against another strain of the virus that infects birds and people.
Physicians at the University of Rochester and Baylor College of
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