The chemotherapy drug motexafin gadolinium (brand name: Xcytrin, manufactured by Pharmacyclics, Inc.) works to thwart cancer cells by disrupting key enzymes involved in cellular metabolism, according to a team of researchers led by Joseph Hacia, Ph.D., assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California.
The cellular disruption results in increases in the amount of zinc available inside the cancer cells
Mayo Clinic researchers have identified defects in a second gene called RyR2 that causes malfunctions in the heart’s electrical system and contributes to what were previously unexplained drownings.
Mayo researchers first discovered defects in a gene that causes the heart’s electrical system to malfunction and described how it might cause a drowning of an otherwise healthy person and reported their findings in a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine
A new study from Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm shows that hundreds of genes in the thigh muscle are activated in regular cycle training. The study also reveals that great differences in training response may be due to the ability in some people to activate their genes much more forcefully. The study is published May 2 in FASEB Journal.
It is common knowledge that it is very dangerous to be inactive and that regular physical activity brings health, improves quality of life and extend
The Hox genes (also known as homeotic genes) play a crucial role in the development of animals, being involved in the determination of segment identity along the body axis. These genes were discovered in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster 90 years ago and have been found later in all animals, including humans. The Hox genes are arranged in the fly genome in a striking manner: they are clustered and their order is the same as that of the body segments they act upon. This organization is conserved
How does cholesterol in our diets end up as artery-clogging plaque that can cause heart attacks and strokes? Research in animals suggests that a little-studied enzyme may play a major role – and that drugs to target it could dramatically reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
Lawrence Rudel, Ph.D., from Wake Forest University School of Medicine, presented new results from his research on ACAT2, a cholesterol transforming enzyme, today at the American Heart Association’s
A study at the University of Sheffield, and published in Nature on Thursday 28 April 2005, has found that long-tailed tits rely on a family support network to bring up their offspring, and that they recognise family members through an individual family call that they learn in the nest.
Long-tailed tits breed co-operatively, with ‘helpers’ working together with breeding pairs to increase the chance that young are reared successfully to adulthood. These helpers choose to help chi
In a step toward making living cells function as if they were tiny computers, engineers at Princeton have programmed bacteria to communicate with each other and produce color-coded patterns.
The feat, accomplished in a biology lab within the Department of Electrical Engineering, represents an important proof-of-principle in an emerging field known as “synthetic biology,” which aims to harness living cells as workhorses that detect hazards, build structures or repair tissues a
In findings that could have implications for autoimmune disorders and drug-resistant bacterial infections, researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine have identified a key protein involved in the appropriate shut-down of inflammation following an immune response to invading pathogens.
Published in the April 28, 2005 issue of the journal Nature, the study in mice and lab cultures of immune cells called macrophages showed that a protein c
Zeroing in on the core cellular mechanisms of sleep, researchers at University of Wisconsin Medical School have identified for the first time a single gene mutation that has a powerful effect on the amount of time fruit flies sleep.
In its normal state, the Drosophila (fruit fly) gene, called Shaker, produces an ion channel that controls the flow of potassium into cells, a process that critically affects, among other things, electrical activity in neurons. A handful of recent
The discovery of a ’molecular switch’ could lead to new ways of treating infections such as MRSA, and inflammatory diseases like arthritis.
According to research published today in Nature, the team from Imperial College London and the University of California, San Diego, have identified an enzyme called IKKá, which can act as a ’brake’ on an immune cell pathway responsible for regulating the body’s response to infection and inflammation.
By
Findings demonstrate mechanism used by numerous membrane proteins throughout the body – opens pathway to new areas of exploration
Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers have discovered how the membrane protein that allows us to sense cold works and how this protein becomes desensitized so that one no longer feels the cold. The study, published this week as an advance online publication by Nature Neuroscience, focused on a specific region of the cold receptor which is found
Observers in eastern Arkansas have reported at least eight independent sightings of a bird that appears to be an ivory-billed woodpecker, a species widely thought to be extinct. A video clip of one bird, though blurry, shows key features, including the size and markings, indicating that the bird is indeed an ivory-billed woodpecker, according to John W. Fitzpatrick of Cornell University and coauthors of a paper released online today by Science.
One of the world’s larges
Why do some cancer cells divide not into two, as cells are supposed to do in mitosis, but into three-four new cells that look thoroughly abnormal? This question was raised as early as the 1890s by the German tumor researcher David Hansemann, who could observe the strange mitosis even using the microscopes of his day. Now another David, Lund University researcher David Gisselsson, has found an answer.
Together with associates from the Section for Clinical Genetics, David Gissels
The high concentration of ceramides extracted by means of supercritical fluid technology has provoked great interest in the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries. Due to their composition, these ceramides increase the hydration of the skin and accelerate the repair of damaged skin tissue.
A fluid in a supercritical state is one that has been subject to conditions above their critical pressure and temperature parameters and which have corresponding intermediate properties – b
Starvation, malnutrition and re-feeding can have deadly consequences for humans and most animals but not Australia’s green-striped burrowing frog.
PhD student Rebecca Cramp from The University of Queensland has found that unlike most animals, which can’t digest food after long periods of starvation, the green-striped burrowing frog is able to absorb nutrients 40 percent more effectively after 3 months without food, than frogs that had eaten regularly. “They can take ma
A significant debate is currently underway in the scientific community over the evolution of the Great White shark, and Chuck Ciampaglio, Ph.D., an assistant professor of geology at the Wright State University Lake Campus, is right in the middle of it.
The issue is if the Great White, one of the most feared predators of the sea, evolved from the huge prehistoric megladon shark or if its ancestry rests with the mako shark. “Most scientists would probably say the Great Whites ev
Feedback
