A new project targeting the increasing resistance of some viruses to drugs is being funded with the help of nine million euros under the Life Sciences, Genomics and Biotechnology for Health area of the EU’s Framework Programme.
The VIRGIL (Vigilance against Viral Resistance) project brings together experts from 55 organisations in 12 European countries to examine the problems being faced in treating certain diseases. Many of these problems have been caused by our heavy use of
With the completion of the genome sequence of a number of organisms, analysis of the gene products, the proteins, is the on-going challenge.
Researchers from the Institut Curie and from the Paris-based biotechnology company Hybrigenics announced today that they have built a protein-protein interaction map of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. This ‘simple’ model organism allows them to study a ‘reference set’ of proteins that includes most of those known to be involved in h
Scientists at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Imperial College London have discovered the origin of hydration force, a phenomenon that causes some complex chemical and biochemical species (including DNA and other electrostatically charged molecules) to repel at short distances when surrounded by water. Through this research, improvements could be made to the design of chemical products used in the chemical, pharmaceutical and food industry.
Ever since the 1970s, scient
Evolutionary analysis of snake venom reveals that toxin proteins arose from multiple body tissues
Bryan Grieg Fry, Ph.D., a scientist from the University of Melbourne, Australia, has conducted the first comprehensive analysis of the origin and evolution of one of nature’s most sophisticated bioweapons: snake venom. His results are reported in the March issue of the journal Genome Research. Venomous snakes, all of which belong to the superfamily Colubroidea, evolved glands
The ancestors of chimpanzees and gorillas were infected with a deadly retrovirus about three to four million years ago, but there is no evidence it infected ancestors of modern-day humans, according to research by genome scientists. The virus struck after humans had split off the evolutionary tree from primates, researchers said. The infection may have played a role in the evolution of such great apes as chimps and gorillas. The research appears in the April issue of the journal Public Library o
It has long been thought that cells that regenerate tissue do so by regressing to a developmentally younger state. Now two University of Washington researchers have demonstrated that cells can regenerate without becoming “younger.”
Biologists for years have studied stem cells, the ones responsible for replenishing and regenerating an organism’s structures, aiming to find the means to selectively regenerate tissue such as that of the heart or liver in much the same way that the body h
Discovery will led to improvements in the chemical, pharmaceutical and food industry
Ever since the 1970s, scientists have been trying to establish the cause of a repulsive force occurring between different electrostatically charged molecules, such as DNA and other biomolecules, when they are very close to each other in aqueous media. This force became know as hydration force.
Jordi Faraudo, a researcher for the Department of Physics at the Universitat Autònoma de Barc
Big advances in understanding microdeletions
A collaboration of European scientists has uncovered new insight into the most common chromosomal microdeletion syndrome in humans. The research group, headed by Dr. Lukas Sommer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, has identified a heretofore unknown role for the TGF cell-to-cell signaling pathway in the pathogenesis of DiGeorge syndrome. By elucidating the genetic mechanism that drives DiGeorge syndrome, Dr. Sommer and colle
Many implications seen for biomedical research
The human brain is estimated to contain 100 billion neurons (the number 1 followed by eleven zeros). Because a typical neuron forms ~1,000 synaptic connections to other neurons, the total number of synapses in the brain is estimated to be 100 trillion (the number 1 followed by 14 zeros). The thin projections from neurons that form connections with each other (axons and dendrites) can be thought of as the biological “wiring” of the br
Study of South Africa’s proteas points to growing risks of extinction
Proteas–plants with large, colorful flowers that are important in the floral trade–are under threat from land-use change and climate change. A study based on a multispecies modeling effort for over 300 proteas of the Cape Floristic Region of South Africa suggests that the protected range of proteas is expected to decrease by 36 to 60 percent by 2050 as a result of climate change.
Proteas are
Sixty million people in 36 countries of sub-Saharan Africa are threatened daily by a deadly parasitic disease known as African sleeping sickness. The disease is caused by organisms called trypanosomes, which are spread by the tsetse fly. African sleeping sickness affects approximately 500,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa, a quarter of whom will die this year. Because the trypanosome has an exceptional genetic strategy for evading the human immune system and resisting treatment, the current treat
Specific variants of genes involved in inflammation and blood vessel constriction are strongly associated with kidney damage in patients undergoing major heart surgery, researchers at Duke University Medical Center have found.
While renal dysfunction after heart surgery is a common occurrence, until now researchers have been unable to predict with any certainty which patients – based on their personal and medical characteristics – are at the highest risk. The current analysis s
Neuroscientists at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., leading a team of researchers in the United States and Europe, have discovered that a novel mutation in the recently identified LRRK2 gene causes parkinsonism in several North American and European families. Their findings will be reported in the April edition of the American Journal of Human Genetics. The disease-causing G2019S mutation in the LRRK2 gene is the first time a genetic cause has been associated with typical, late-onset Parkinson’s
When scientists finished sequencing the genomes of seven species of fruit fly last year, little did they know that they had also sequenced the genes of several bacteria that dwell undetected inside fruit fly embryos.
The genes of these bacteria, from a genus Wolbachia that infects many insects, have been sitting in the fruit fly gene database since then, unnoticed, according to Michael B. Eisen, a UC Berkeley assistant professor of molecular and cell biology and a faculty scient
The DNA tumor virus simian virus 40 produces the Large T antigen which inactivates two of the cell’s most important cancer-preventing proteins, p53 and pRb. In a study published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center report the discovery of an additional target for T antigen–a protein called Fbw7.
The Fbw7 gene is located in a chromosomal region that is deleted in up to 30% of human tumors. “Fbw7 is itself an importa
Plus, simple training brings young females up to speed
Given the heated debate about whether men and women have brain differences that affect cognition, psychologists are searching for definitive answers. However, research in humans is confounded by factors such as diet, medication, lifestyles, rearing and culture. As a result, psychologists are studying non-human primates in controlled setting to get a clearer, less distorted picture.
New cross-sectional studies of Rhe
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