Two researchers from the University of Navarra, Javier Novo and José Luis Vizmanos, have performed a bioinformatic study on the genes which have been implicated in the development of cancer. The research project has been described in an article which will be published shortly in Trends in Genetics, one of the five best journals in the area of “Genetics and Inheritance”.
This bioinformatic study has permitted the researchers to identify certain common properties in those genes which ar
From 1st to 24th of March, 2006, the application forms to participate in the second INFOBIOMED Training Challenge will be opened. This is an innovative training experience organized by the Network of Excellence INFOBIOMED.
This training meeting, that will take place in Viladrau (Barcelona, Spain) from the 29th May to the 2nd of June 2006, will gather 2 groups of 5 students with different backgrounds (bioinformatics, medical informatics, biology, medicine, chemistry, etc.) who will be w
… Management of Dementia
Alzheimer’s disease–specific biomarkers clearly are needed for the differential diagnosis of cognitive impairment in the elderly. What sets age-related disorders like hypertension, hypercholesterolemia and diabetes mellitus apart from Alzheimer’s disease is that each has biomarkers that can be followed easily and repeatedly, not simply to diagnose, but also to monitor response and optimize treatment. In contrast, the current role of clinical labor
Researchers have found that a simple test for an enzyme called LDH may have significant importance for determining major risk factors in adults with sickle cell disease. The study results will be published in the March 15, 2006, issue of Blood, the official journal of the American Society of Hematology.
“This study suggests that LDH testing may be a worthwhile addition to ’well adult’ visits for individuals with sickle cell anemia, though the significance in children and ado
Fluorescence that illuminates a specific protein within a cell’s nucleus may be a key to identifying cancer virulence and to developing individualized treatment, according to researchers at Purdue University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
The scientists created a technique that automatically locates and maps proteins involved in regulating cell behavior, said Sophie Lelièvre, Purdue assistant professor of basic medical sciences. The research results have for th
A study by researchers at New York University and the University of London offers additional evidence that mammals and fruit flies share a common genetic makeup that determines the function of their internal biological clocks. The study appears in the latest issue of Current Biology. The research team consisted of post-doctoral researcher Ben Collins, Esteban Mazzoni, a graduate student, and Assistant Professor Justin Blau of NYU’s Department of Biology and Professor Ralf Stanewsky of the Unive
With its big, hockey puck-sized eyes, shortened face and nubby horns, it was probably as cute as a button – at least to its mother, a three-horned dinosaur called Triceratops that could weigh as much as 10 tons and had one of the largest skulls of any land animal on the planet.
Visitors to the University of California, Berkeley’s Valley Life Sciences Building now can judge for themselves. A cast of the foot-long skull from the youngest Triceratops fossil ever found is on
It has been well documented that, across human cultures and in most mammals, males are usually more aggressive and less nurturing than females. It’s simple to blame male hormones, like testosterone, for male behavior such as aggression. But maybe it’s in our genes, too.
Indeed such social behavior also has a genetic basis, according to new research on mice by neuroscientists at the University of Virginia Health System. “The differences in sex chromosomes, XX versus XY, are also re
Chemists at UCLA and the University of Michigan report an advance toward the goal of cars that run on hydrogen rather than gasoline. While the U.S. Department of Energy estimates that practical hydrogen fuel will require concentrations of at least 6.5 percent, the chemists have achieved concentrations of 7.5 percent — nearly three times as much as has been reported previously — but at a very low temperature (77 degrees Kelvin).
The research, scheduled to be published in late March in t
Questions around the movement and population size changes of Kiwis, Tuatara and other New Zealand wildlife over the past hundred years have been continually studied by conservationists and scientists. It now seems the answers might all be found in the viruses that infect them.
Dr Alexei Drummond, from The University of Auckland’s Faculty of Science, has been part of a global research team analysing the genetic sequences of viruses in animals.
This pioneering tech
The thyroid gland is very sensitive to ionizing radiation. The number of patients with thyroid gland cancer is particularly high among those who endured the Chernobyl catastrophe in childhood. Ultrasonic scanning and bioptic tests investigations are usually used for early detection of thyroid gland cancer but researchers do not stop the search of more efficient methods.
They deal with molecular markers of cancer in order to discover mutation of the genes participating in carcinogenesis.
The Tbilisi researchers J.B. Tkemaladze (Center for systems analysis of Georgia) and K.N. Chichinadze from the Beritashvili Institute of Physiology, Academy of Sciences of Georgia, believe that centrioles – protein structures that participate in animal cell division – are responsible for age-related changes of cells in a multicellular organism. Animal cells can divide for a strictly defined number of times, after which they inevitably perish, and these are centrioles in particular that, in research
Scientists at The University of Manchester have created a new type of ‘bio-gel’ which provides a pH neutral environment for culturing cells in 3D, as published in the journal Advanced Materials (March 2006).
The gel is the first pH neutral material made from combinations of dipeptides (pairs of amino acids) to provide an environment in which cells can be cultured under physiological conditions.
Uniquely, the gel mimics the properties of cell scaffolds which naturally occur
The biotech companies Digna Biotech and Biotherapix have signed an agreement to jointly apply their patented products towards the development of a treatment for pulmonary fibrosis. Digna Biotech is the commercial entity responsible for developing the intellectual property (patents) generated by the CIMA of the University of Navarra in its preclinical, clinical and commercial research.
The focal points of this agreement are the M3 protein owned by Biotherapix and the p17 peptide from Dig
By scanning the entire human genome in search of genetic variations that may signal recent evolution, University of Chicago researchers found more than 700 genetic variants that may be targets of recent natural positive selection during the past 10,000 years of human evolution.
In one of the first comprehensive genome scans for selection, the researchers found widespread evidence of evolution in all of the populations studied. Their results are published and freely available online in t
A mouse immune cell that plays dual roles as both assassin and messenger, normally the job of two separate cells, has been discovered by an international team of researchers from the United States and France. The discovery has triggered a race among scientists to find a human equivalent of the multitasking cell, which could one day be a target for therapies that seek out and destroy cancer.
“In the same way that intelligence and law enforcement agencies can face deadly threats together i
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