Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have found that 85 percent of embryos transferred during in vitro fertilization fail to become live births, highlighting the need for improving diagnostic techniques to identify viable embryos.
Published in the August issue of Fertility and Sterility, the study reviewed seven years of U.S. statistics from all the fertility clinics that report data on reproductive techniques. Director of the Yale Fertility Center, Pasquale Patrizio, M.D., pr
For the first time, researchers have observed exactly how some cells are able to repair DNA damage caused by the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation.
The Ohio State University study revealed how the enzyme photolyase uses energy from visible light to repair UV damage.
This enzyme is missing in all mammals, including humans, although all plants and all other animals have it. Greater understanding of how photolyase works could one day lead to drugs that help repair UV d
In studies with mice, Penn State researchers have shown that a combination of retinoic acid — a product the body makes naturally from vitamin A — and PIC, a synthetic immunity booster, significantly elevates the immune system response to a tetanus shot.
Dr. A. Catharine Ross, who holds the Dorothy Foehr Huck Chair in Nutrition at Penn State, directed the study. She says, “There aren’t very many examples of using nutrition to improve immune response. These results show that a
Four seemingly unrelated viral diseases may some day be defeated by a single treatment, according to a recent collaborative study involving researchers at the University of Georgia’s College of Veterinary Medicine.
Their study focuses on viruses responsible for HIV, measles, Ebola and Marburg and includes investigators from Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study is being funded by a grant from the Hudson-Alpha I
Simple test could be developed to determine cancerous or pre-cancerous conditions
The attaching of methyl–or chemical–groups onto DNA sequences within the tumor suppressing gene Rb2/p130 can cause the gene to cease functioning in non-small lung cancer cells (NSLC) and retinoblastoma cells, researchers at Temple University’s Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine and Italy’s University of Siena have discovered.
Their findings are reported i
A new and unusual class of genes plays an important role in the development of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to new research here. At the same time, these genes may provide a new form of therapy for the disease.
CLL strikes some 9,700 Americans annually, making it the most common adult leukemia in the world.
The study found that the loss of two genes for producing small molecules known as microRNAs enables damaged cells to survive, rather than normally se
Destruction prevents transport of receptors necessary for cognition and emotion
Neuroscientists at the University at Buffalo have shown in two recently published papers that destabilization of structures called microtubules, intracellular highways that transport receptors to their working sites in the brain, likely underlie many mental disorders and could be promising targets for intervention.
In their most recent article, published in the Aug. 19 issue of the Journal
Findings highlight 12 potential ’susceptibility’ genes
Mayo Clinic researchers in collaboration with scientists at Perlegen Sciences, Inc. and funded by the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research have produced the first large-scale whole genome map of genetic variability associated with Parkinson’s disease. Their results highlight changes in 12 genes that may increase the risk for Parkinson’s disease in some people. Parkinson’s disease is a disabling and currently in
In the wake of Katrina, the public health threats from infectious diseases in hurricane-devastated areas are more likely to come from milder, more common infections rather than exotic diseases. These common infections can often be prevented using simple hygiene measures and a little common sense.
“Deadly diseases, such as typhoid or cholera, are unlikely to break out after hurricanes and floods in areas where these diseases do not already naturally occur,” says Ruth Berkelman,
A world-class research facility investigating diseases such as osteoarthritis, cardiovascular disease and cancer has been awarded a further £3 million to continue its groundbreaking work.
The University of Manchester’s Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell-Matrix Research has had its core grant renewed – securing infrastructure funding for the next five years.
The Centre, one of only five such Wellcome Trust-funded facilities in the UK and the only one in its field, is home to
Who works together with whom? This is the question scientists at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch have investigated with regard to human proteins. The answer can be found within a map – the first one in international research – showing 3,186 interactions between 1,705 human proteins. Among them: 531 previously unknown interactions involving 195 disease proteins, highly relevant for medical research.
“We have laid the foundation for a comprehensive connect
By turning-off 80 genes, one after the other, a Dutch research group has located the gene that is a precursor to a rare skin cancer. In addition, the research revealed that a medicine to treat this special disease already exists: Acetylsalisylsyre. A cream was developed, and it works.
This was explained to a full auditorium by professor René Bernards of the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam during the functional genomics conference, attended by more than 500 researchers, now ta
Why do estrogen-dependent breast-cancer cells grow and spread rapidly? Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign say it may be because estrogen virtually eliminates levels of a vitally important regulatory protein.
In a paper that will appear in the Sept. 13 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists report that human breast-cancer cells exposed to estrogen in their laboratory showed a dramatic reduction in numbers of a crucial
PUMA travels from the nucleus to the cytoplasm to free p53 from the grip of Bcl-xL, allowing p53 to trigger signaling on mitochondria that leads to cell death, according to St. Jude
The discovery of how the activities of the protein p53 initiate signals that trigger cell suicide offers critical insights for developing new anti-cancer drugs, according to investigators from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. A report on this work appears in the September 9 issue of Science.
Analysis of a key protein in different subtypes of avian flu viruses shows that resistance to the antiviral drug amantadine in H5N1 occurs worldwide, but is especially prevalent in China, according to St. Jude
Resistance to the antiviral drug amantadine is spreading more rapidly among avian influenza viruses of H5N1 subtype in Southeast Asia than in North America, according to the study done by investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
The St. Jude tea
The tissue-specific elongation factor eEF1A2 might be an oncoprotein involved in breast cancer. Research published in the open access journal BMC Cancer shows that eEF1A2, which is usually present only in muscle cells and neurons, is abnormally expressed in two thirds of breast tumours. This means it could be used as a new diagnostic marker and, once its role as been identified, as a therapeutic target for the treatment of breast tumours.
Catherine Abbott, Victoria Tomlinson and colleagu
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