An international research team led by Drs. Berge Minassian and Stephen Scherer of The Hospital for Sick Children (HSC) and the University of Toronto (U of T) has identified a gene responsible for the most severe form of teenage-onset epilepsy, known as Lafora disease (LD). The discovery is reported in the September issue of the scientific journal Nature Genetics.
“Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders affecting over 40 million people worldwide,” said Dr. Berge Minassian,
Some cells in the kidney can not only survive without sufficient oxygen, but actually begin stretching and multiplying to make up for their fallen brethren, says a Medical College of Georgia researcher.
Some cancer cells similarly adapt; as a tumor grows too big for its blood and oxygen supply, some cells transform so they can survive without oxygen, emerging stronger and treatment resistant, says Dr. Zheng Dong, cell biologist.
He doubts that these two very different cell types tr
An unusual collaboration between a University of Iowa cardiologist and cancer biologists at the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center at the UI, the Scripps Research Institute in California and Kanagawa Cancer Center Hospital and Research Center in Japan utilized a multidisciplinary approach to learn more about how aggressive cancer cells function and how they differ from poorly aggressive cancer cells. The study, which appears in the Sept. 1 issue of Cancer Research, may also suggest potential new ther
Drugs that contain antibodies are a standard part of therapy for many cancers, but these antibodies do not always work. A finding by researchers with the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Iowa may help make the antibodies more effective by boosting the power of white blood cells, which play a role in fighting cancer.
One way that antibodies ideally function is to stick to cancer cells and signal various types of white blood cells to kill the cancer cells. The UI Holden
A team of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has identified more than 50 previously unknown proteins and associates several of them with rare human muscle and nerve degeneration diseases. The team is publishing their findings this week in the journal Science.
Led by TSRI Professors Larry Gerace and John R. Yates III, the team used a technique called subtractive proteomics to identify 62 new proteins in the inner nuclear membrane of the human cell. The team demonstrated that
A team of scientists and engineers from the Institute of Food Research and Lancaster University are developing a quick, safe and non-invasive scanner to measure the composition of the human body.
The prototype scanner, featured in the latest edition of New Scientist, uses two imaging techniques to simultaneously build a 3D image of the subject’s shape, and get under the skin to measure body composition.
“Techniques exist for measuring body shape and composition separately,
Physicians may be a step closer to pre-natal diagnosis of a rare genetic disorder called Joubert syndrome. This condition, present before birth, affects an area of the brain controlling balance and coordination.
New findings from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine have identified chromosome 11 as a second site for a gene or genes that cause Joubert syndrome, a disorder that affects about 1 in 30,000 individuals. Prior to this study, chromosome 9 had been the on
More dentists, patients see benefit of lasers
Until recently, the use of lasers in the dental office was marginalized because of the cost of the equipment and its limited use. Today, manufacturers and dentists believe “cutting with light” will gain a much wider appeal thanks to recent technological leaps and declining costs, according to the August/September 2003 issue of AGD Impact, the monthly newsmagazine of the Academy of General Dentistry (AGD).
Not a day goes by that
Anti-rejection drugs and pre-transplant health problems both play a role
As if the ordeal of waiting for, receiving and living with an organ transplant weren’t enough, a new study finds that people who get a second chance at life from new hearts, lungs, livers or intestines are very likely to have their lives cut short by failing kidneys.
In fact, 16.5 percent of all non-kidney transplant recipients develop chronic kidney failure, and almost a third of those patients go
An engineered mouse, already known to be immune to the weight gain ramifications of a high-calorie, high-fat diet, now seems able to resist the onset of diabetes.
The mouse, stripped of a gene known as SCD-1, is apparently impervious to the negative effects of the type of diet that, for many people, has significant health and social consequences.
“We think this animal model may be protected against diabetes,” says James Ntambi, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of bioche
In the treatment of stroke, there is currently only a three-hour “window of therapeutic opportunity” to prevent additional brain cell damage and only one medication approved to improve blood flow to oxygen-deprived neurons near the injury, thereby minimizing potentially debilitating side effects.
Now, scientists from Northwestern University report that a single injection of a chemical they created — given up to six hours after brain injury or stroke — protects against additional brain cel
Smokers carrying a newly found genetic marker are 5-10 times more likely to fall victim to the disease than other smokers; 120 times more than nonsmokers who don’t carry the marker
Scientists at the Weizmann Institute have discovered a new genetic risk factor that increases the susceptibility of smokers to lung cancer.
Published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the findings show that smokers who carry the newly discovered genetic marker are around 120 times
The first line of defense used by the human blood-brain barrier in response to bacterial meningitis is described by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine in a study published in the September 2, 2003 issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation. The scientists also describe two bacterial factors specific to the meningitis pathogen that thwart the normal protective role of the blood-brain barrier, leading to serious infection.
Composed of a layer
Dale Greiner and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts have developed a protocol for achieving stem cell transplantation that is not limited by significant patient side-effects and may not necessarily require that donor blood, bone marrow or whole organs are a “match” with the recipient –- characteristics that make these new procedures highly attractive for development and use in clinical human transplantation.
Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are parent cells in the bone marrow that
Markus Neurath and fellow researchers at the University of Mainz, Germany, have characterized the interaction between intestinal bacteria and dendritic cells (DCs) that may provide an explanation for the clinical symptoms of Crohn disease that only occur in specific regions of the gut.
The authors used transgenic mice to investigate the expression of the p40 subunit of IL-12 and IL-23. The authors demonstrate that p40 is expressed by a newly identified subset of DCs at greater levels in the
When physicians routinely “thin” the blood of patients undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery in order to place them on the heart-lung machine, they may be causing more damage to the kidneys and other organs than previously appreciated, according to a new study by Duke University Medical Center researchers.
For years moderate dilution of the blood has been thought to protect the kidneys from damage, but the Duke researchers found in their study of more than 1,400 bypass patients that dil
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