Circulating stem cells play a minor role in repairing lung damage, according to a team of scientists who used male and female chromosomal differences to analyze the repair process in lung transplant patients.
Reporting in today’s edition of the journal Transplantation, lead author Dani Zander, M.D., of The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, and colleagues at the University of Florida College of Medicine found that less than 1 percent of a certain type of reparative
Working with mice, University of Iowa scientists and colleagues from Okayama University, Japan, have shown that it is possible to cure a certain type of hereditary deafness by silencing a gene that causes hearing loss.
Richard Smith, M.D., the Sterba Hearing Research Professor in Otolaryngology at the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, described the study as a proof-of-principle experiment, but added that the success may point the way to new treatments for deafnes
Some parasites trigger their own destruction by altering their hosts’ behavior, researchers at The University of Arizona and Wesleyan University report in Nature.
Many parasites have developed mechanisms that suppress their hosts’ ability to fight them off or even change their behavior in favor of the parasite. “We found the opposite is true with tiger moth caterpillars and their parasites,” said UA Regents’ Professor Emerita Elizabeth Bernays.
Bernays d
Scripps research scientists describe how T-cell receptors and coreceptors interact during an immune response
A group of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute has solved a mystery that has dogged immunologists for many years: how T-cell receptors interact with their coreceptor proteins at the beginning of an immune response.
T-cell receptors and coreceptor molecules are both large proteins displayed on the surface of T cells, and they play an essential role during t
Researchers have isolated bacteria which can grow on and ‘mop up’ smelly compounds in the mouth that are linked to bad breath. These smelly, highly reactive ‘one-carbon’ compounds are naturally produced from the breakdown of sulphur-containing amino acids in the mouth.
Dr Ann Wood and her colleagues at Kings College, London, reported these findings in the August issue of Environmental Microbiology. The odour-eating methylotrophic bacteria were isolated from the tongue, tooth plaq
The latest review of the Government Chemist (GC) presents an account of LGC’s analytical, advisory and strategic work for the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) during 2004. An overview of the year’s achievements, the review shows significant growth in the role of the GC and the subsequent benefits for government, businesses and consumers.
The review focuses on the GC’s three main responsibilities: its statutory referee function to provide evidence to resol
A specialized subpopulation of the antibody-producing B cells of the immune system plays a “double-barreled” role in triggering both kinds of immunity — innate and acquired, Duke University Medical Center immunologists have discovered. The division of labor between B-1a and B-1b cells they have uncovered offers basic insights that could contribute to more rational development of vaccines, they said.
B cells are the arms factories of the immune system, producing antibodies that t
Combining partially differentiated stem cells with gene therapy can promote the growth of new “insulation” around nerve fibers in the damaged spinal cords of rats, a new study shows. The treatment, which mimics the activity of two nerve growth factors, also improves the animals’ motor function and electrical conduction from the brain to the leg muscles. The finding may eventually lead to new ways of treating spinal cord injury in humans. The study was funded in part by the National Institute
How did University of Alberta researchers discover that animals zig when they were only supposed to zag? A little birdie told them.
In studying the spatial memory of wild-caught mountain chickadees, University of Alberta researchers were surprised to discover the birds contradicting prior research that showed how animals navigate. This study is the first to reveal a different pattern. Previously, only animals that had been raised in human-made enclosures had been tested.
Exactly what behavioral mechanisms determine variation in male mating success is important because different mechanisms may have different evolutionary consequences. In addition to competition for mates and mate choice, indirect mate choice can cause sexual selection on male traits. This is when females have preferences for “external traits” determined by male competition.
One suggested example is when females prefer to mate at certain sites that males fight over, claimed to be
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have identified an elusive subunit of a neurotransmitter receptor found in both humans and the much-studied laboratory nematode C. elegans which may open new pathways of research on muscle function.
The neurotransmitter acetylcholine binds to two different nicotinic receptors at the nematode’s neuromuscular junctions, causing them to contract. Previously, researchers knew the subunit composition only of the levamisole-sensi
CINCINNATI-Cincinnati scientists have discovered how blood-regenerating stem cells move from bone marrow into the blood stream.
The finding has led to the development of a new chemical compound that can accelerate this process (called stem cell mobilization) in mice–which could eventually lead to more efficient stem cell harvesting for human use.
The researchers, from the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati (UC), studi
Development, the process that gives rise to an adult organism also causes aging, according to Harvard Medical School researchers Joao Pedro de Magalhaes and George Church. Joao Pedro de Magalhaes is a Portuguese microbiologist.
In “Genomes Optimize Reproduction: Aging as a Consequence of the Developmental Program,” appearing in the August issue of the journal Physiology, Joao Pedro de Magalhaes and George Church assert that the aging process is driven by the same genetic processes t
In a study published in the latest issue of Current Biology, University College London (UCL) scientists have shown that the human brain holds and continuously updates an internal map of the body. The UCL team hope their findings will help explain how the processes in the brain which create a coherent body map may go wrong in people with neurological or psychiatric disorders.
Using a body illusion to fool volunteers, UCL researchers found that volunteers’ brains rapidly adjusted t
An innovative new statistical method, described in the open-access journal PLoS Biology, streamlines the computation required to identify all the potential locations in the genome that influence a particular physical trait, or phenotype. Thanks to the new method developed by John Storey, Joshua M. Akey, and Leonid Kruglyak, researchers have a more efficient genome-mining technique to help them identify all the genomic elements that produce specific traits. In brewer’s yeast alone, Storey and collea
Researchers have found new evidence suggesting that the ability to taste bitter compounds has been strongly advantageous in human evolution.
Animals rely on chemical perception, including the senses of taste and smell, for protection against the harmful compounds found in nature. It is widely believed that behavioral and dietary choices may have reduced the importance of such chemical perception in higher primates, and particularly in humans.
In new work, researchers
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