Mix-and-shake procedure leads to instant glass microbubbles
Chemical engineers from Rice University have developed a fundamentally new approach – the most environmentally sensitive yet devised – for making tiny hollow spheres called microcapsules. Microcapsule research is one of the most active fields in applied nanotechnology, with dozens of companies either developing or using the tiny containers – usually smaller than living cells – to deliver everything from drugs and imaging ag
With the unusual opportunity that human leprosy infections provide for study of human immune responses, scientists have discovered how the body’s early warning system prompts a rapid immune response by two separate armies of defensive cells. The finding helps explain why, when threatened by microbes like the leprosy bug, this initial defense sometimes succeeds in limiting the damage, but in other cases yields to a dangerous, spreading infection.
Led by Stephan R. Krutzik of UCLA
Opening a window to understand the molecular basis of a hereditary ataxia, Dartmouth Medical School researchers have identified an enzyme activity that is inactivated in all reported mutant forms of a disease protein. The discovery may lead to therapies to treat the neurological disease. The study appears in the June 3, 2005 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) as Paper of the Week, an honor conferred on approximately 1% of JBC’s 6600 annual publications.
Dr. Ch
U-M researchers identify method that produces viable eggs when thawed
A new technique might allow women diagnosed with cancer the opportunity to have children when chemotherapy and radiation treatments rob them of their fertility, researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have found. By having her eggs frozen before she begins cancer treatments, a woman can preserve the hope of one day having a baby.
Freezing eggs is one thing; thawing them
Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center may have uncovered the reason why some people who are genetically predisposed to hormone-dependent cancers develop the disease as an adult, while others who are similarly susceptible don’t.
In a study to be published on-line in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) the week of May 30, 2005, they show, for the first time, that exposure to a pharmaceutical estrogen during fetal development c
Until now it has been impossible to accurately measure the levels of important chemicals in living brain cells in real time and at the level of a single cell. Scientists at the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Plant Biology and Stanford University are the first to overcome this obstacle by successfully applying genetic nanotechnology using molecular sensors to view changes in brain chemical levels. The sensors alter their 3-dimensional form upon binding with the chemical, which is then vis
The McGill University Health Center (MUHC) in Montreal is pleased to announce the first successful birth in Canada resulting from frozen eggs. A team led by Professor Seang Lin Tan, Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at McGill University and Director of the McGill Reproductive Centre at the MUHC in Montreal confirmed the birth of a healthy baby boy, weighing 3740grams on April 29. “We are the first in-vitro fertilization (IVF) Centre in Canada to achieve this success,” says Dr.
New research shows that exposure to harmful chemicals and drugs during critical developmental periods early in life may actually “reprogram” the way certain genes respond to the female hormone estrogen. This genetic reprogramming may determine whether people with a genetic predisposition for a disease actually develop the disease.
The new research shows that when rats with a genetic predisposition to uterine tumors also receive an early-life exposure to diethylstilbestrol (DES), a syntheti
Just as disturbance makes a landscape susceptible to invasion by alien plants, the construction of reservoirs could be contributing to the accelerating spread of exotic aquatic species.
Just as disturbance makes a landscape susceptible to invasion by alien plant species, the construction of reservoirs around the globe could be contributing to the accelerating spread of exotic aquatic species, according to a Forum article in the June 2005 issue of BioScience. John A. Havel of
All cells are encased within a protective lipid membrane. The membrane is studded with many hundreds of different proteins that transport nutrients, ions, and water into and out of the cell. Such membrane proteins also help cells recognize each other in the body, and make the nervous system work. Scientists at Stockholm University have now mapped out nearly all of the membrane proteins in the enteric bacterium Escherichia coli. Their study is published this week in Science magazine.
The t
A unique material based on cobweb proteins is being created by Russian researchers of the State Research Center of Russian Federation GosNIIgentics, Scientific Research Center “Coal-Chemical Fiber”, State Research Center of Applied Microbiology in cooperation with their colleagues from Michigan University with support form the International Science and Technology Center (ISTC) (project 1033.2).
The spider’s hunting net is built from several different proteins. Researchers ar
Scientists at ETH Zurich have set a world record in mass spectrometry by observing the largest ever mass-to-charge ratio of over 1 Mio Dalton (MDa) using a special mass spectrometer. The researchers in the team of Prof. Renato Zenobi had to overcome two obstacles, the intact vaporization and ionization of the sample, as well as the detection of the very large ions. Modern soft ionization methods allow giant molecules such as proteins or DNA to be brought into the gas phase. The ETH researchers e
Scientists for the first time have watched agents of brain-wasting diseases, called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE), as they invade a nerve cell and then travel along wire-like circuits to points of contact with other cells. These findings will help scientists better understand TSE diseases and may lead to ways to prevent or minimize their effects. TSE, or prion, diseases include scrapie in sheep and goats; chronic wasting disease in deer and elk; mad cow disease in cattle; a
Findings offer new ideas on disease states
New research from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill shows how a protein may be crucial to the regulation of genes in embryonic stem cells. The protein, called “eed,” is needed for an essential chemical modification of many genes. Embryos cannot survive without the modification.
The findings appear in the May 24 issue of the journal Current Biology.
The research offers an important contribution to a new wave
The worldwide popularity of garlic as a food ingredient and its therapeutic stature in folklore both stem in part from the distinctive pungency associated with its raw, uncooked state. Researchers this week report that this pungency, manifested as a characteristic mixture of burning and prickling sensations and flavor, can be ascribed largely to the effects of a particular compound and its ability to activate specific protein thermoreceptors in the mouth.
The findings are reported
Circadian rhythms in mammalian behavior, physiology, and biochemistry are controlled by the central clock within a brain structure known as the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). The clock is synchronized to environmental cycles of light and dark. It is well known, from everyday experience, that adjusting to new light schedules takes several days, though the details of how this adaptation takes place are not well understood.
Researchers now report findings that suggest this adaptatio
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