UCI study points to new therapeutic possibilities for epilepsy and neurodegenerative diseases
UC Irvine researchers have found that a protein best known for building connections between nerve cells and muscle also plays a role in controlling brain cell activity. The finding points to possible therapeutic applications in the development of new drugs for treatment of epilepsy and neurodegenerative disorders.
Martin Smith, professor of anatomy and neurobiology in the School o
Scientists from Imperial College London and Pfizer have developed a new method that could predict individual patient responses to drug treatments. The authors anticipate that the development will advance biomedical research further towards development of personalised medicines.
Research published today in Nature demonstrates the new ‘pharmaco-metabonomic’ approach that uses a combination of advanced chemical analysis and mathematical modelling to predict drug-induced responses in ind
Researchers from the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) connected to the University of Antwerp are the first to show that the quantity of amyloid protein in brain cells is a major risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. Amyloid protein has already been known to be the primary component of the senile plaques in the brains of patients. The new discovery demonstrates that the greater the quantity of the protein that is produced, the younger the dementia patient is.
’Life detector’ could be part of evolutionary old system, say researchers
The reason people can approach animals in the wild more easily from a car than by foot may be due to an innate “life detector” tuned to the visual movements of an approaching predator’s feet, says Queen’s University psychologist Niko Troje.
“We believe this visual filter is used to signal the presence of animals that are propelled by the motion of their feet and the force of grav
Scientists have used a powerful molecular imaging technique to see inside living cells infected with the most pervasive and potentially fatal childhood respiratory virus known to medicine — respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). The technique is yielding insight on viruses – such as RSV, human influenza, hepatitis C, West Nile virus and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) — that replicate with the help of proteins encoded by ribonucleic acid (RNA) inside the cell. Ultimately, the research could
Researchers have discovered the first African hantavirus, a type of rodent-borne virus that can cause life-threatening infections in humans when it is inhaled through aerosolized rodent urine or droppings.
A team led by Jan ter Meulen while he was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) international research scholar at the University of Conakry in the Republic of Guinea, identified the new virus in an African wood mouse (Hylomiscus simus) in Sangassou, Guinea. Their findings
Cuttlefish are wizards of camouflage. Adept at blending in with their surroundings, cuttlefish are known to have a diverse range of body patterns and can switch between them almost instantaneously. New research from MBL Marine Resources scientists, to appear in the May 2006 issue of the journal Vision Research, confirms that while these masters of disguise change their appearance based on visual cues, they do so while being completely colorblind.
While previous research has reported cu
Microarray analysis could help spur new studies, new treatment approaches
The meta analysis, which examined more than 4.5 million data points on more than 100 microarrays from mouse models, also identified more than 1,300 functional groups, including signaling and transcription pathways, which may also play an important role in establishing a capacity for a “high level of alcohol consumption.”
The results of the study could lead to a better understanding of the molecular
Everybody has experienced a sense of “losing oneself” in an activity–whether a movie, sport, sex, or meditation. Now, researchers have caught the brain in the act of losing “self” as it shuts down introspection during a demanding sensory task. The researchers–led by Rafael Malach and Ilan Goldberg of the Weizmann Institute of Science reporting in the April 20, 2006, issue of Neuron–say their findings show that self-related function actually shuts down during such intense sensory tasks. Thus, an
Evolution has always been a game of wins and losses.
Anatomical features, scientists know, come and go. The animal kingdom is full of critters that have independently gained or lost similar features. Whales and snakes, for instance, have lost their legs. Winged flight evolved separately in birds, bats and pterosaurs at different times in evolutionary history.
Now, writing today (April 20, 2006) in the journal Nature, a team of scientists from the Howard Hughes Medical Inst
The complete sequencing of human chromosome 17 and mouse chromosome 11 offers unique insights into the evolution of the genome of higher mammals, said a Baylor College of Medicine researcher who participated in this effort reported in today’s issue of the journal Nature.
The work represents the first time that a mouse chromosome has been completely sequenced and annotated, said Dr. James R. Lupski, vice chair and professor in the BCM department of molecular and human geneti
Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have discovered a neural circuit that is likely to play an important role in the visual perception of moving objects. Their finding, published in the April issue of the journal Neuron, forces neurobiologists to rethink the neural pathways that our brain relies on to detect motion.
It had long been assumed that sensory information about color and fine detail is relatively unimportant for the perception of moving objects.
Caspase-12 is a molecule with a death-wish. Found only in people of African descent, this protein shuts down our body’s immune system, opening the door to potentially lethal infections. In a groundbreaking new study published in the prestigious journal Nature this week, the team that first discovered the role of caspase-12 in humans has now uncovered the mechanism by which it sabotages us, allowing researchers to develop methods to counter its damaging effects.
Caspase-12 is found in aro
Scientists have long known that the social insects in the order Hymenoptera–which includes ants, bees, and wasps–have an unusual mechanism for sex determination: Unfertilized eggs develop into males, while fertilized eggs become females. But the development of an unfertilized egg into an adult (called parthenogenesis) remains a mysterious process.
One mystery has been the origin of the centrosome, an essential cellular component that is ordinarily derived from the sperm after fertiliz
In the latest issue of the journal Nature, scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) describe a new understanding about how long-term immunity works–findings that may lead to new ways of thinking about how to enhance certain immune responses and how to improve vaccines.
Led by immunologist Ronald Germain, M.D., Ph.D., the scientists took videos through a microscope to document what happens inside the lymph
Scientists in the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center say that just one, single, malfunctioning microRNA is sufficient to cause cancer in mice. The discovery offers new insight into the development of some forms of leukemia and lymphoma and at the same time underscores the powerful role that these tiny snippets of non-coding RNA play in cell signaling pathways active in carcinogenesis.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first direct evidence that overexpression of a
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