Researchers at Stanford University have made new discoveries that shed light on two inherited neurodegenerative disorders that are caused by inability of the body to transport sialic acid out of cellular compartments. The findings focus on how different mutations in one transporter molecule can cause a wide spectrum of symptoms in Salla Disease and infantile sialic acid storage disease (ISSD).
The research appears as the “Paper of the Week” in the January 14 issue of the Journ
MIT biologists report a potential way to decrease the dose of chemotherapeutic agents needed to tackle cancer, a feat that would reduce these agents’ toxic side effects.
What makes cancer cells unique is that they divide at a faster rate than ordinary cells, which makes them susceptible to the action of chemotherapeutic agents. But although chemotherapy is an effective treatment against fast-growing tumors, it is also associated with numerous toxic side effects because it is
Glia appear essential for ’hair cells’ responsible for hearing and balance
Traditionally viewed as supporting actors, cells known as glia may be essential for the normal development of nerve cells responsible for hearing and balance, according to new University of Utah research. The study is reported in the January 6, 2005 issue of Neuron and is co-authored by scientists at the University of Washington.
“Using zebrafish as a model, we’ve demonstrated that gl
Large, multi-center clinical trial planned in Lou Gehrig’s disease
A family of antibiotics that includes penicillin may help prevent nerve damage and death in a wide variety of neurological diseases, including Lou Gehrig’s disease, dementia, stroke, and epilepsy, Johns Hopkins researchers have found. The antibiotics’ beneficial effects, discovered in experiments in the lab and with mice, are unrelated to their ability to kill bacteria, the researchers report in the J
Scientists have developed a new “biological smoke detector” to help protect against potential bioterrorist attacks, according to a study published in the Jan. 1 edition of Analytical Chemistry, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.
High-traffic facilities like airports, office buildings, rail stations and sporting arenas serve hundreds of thousands of people each day, making them particularly susceptible to silent and invis
Two specific areas in chromosome 7 and chromosome 16 have been associated with photosensitivity, an epilepsy-related trait, by a team of European scientists in the January issue of Human Molecular Genetics. Photosensitivity or photoparoxysmal response (PPR) is associated with the most common epilepsy of genetic origin –Idiopathic Generalised Epilepsy (IGE) – and comprehension of the genetics behind it is important to a better understanding of IGE and epilepsy in general.
Epilepsie
Cord blood cells limit heart attack damage in animal study
Stem cells from umbilical cord blood effectively treated heart attacks in an animal study, report cardiologist Robert J. Henning, MD, and colleagues at the University of South Florida and James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital.
When injected into rats’ hearts soon after a heart attack, stem cells taken from human umbilical cord blood (HUCB) greatly reduced the size of heart damage and restored pumping func
Researchers have known for a decade that the p53 tumor suppressor gene is important for killing cells as they proliferate under low-oxygen conditions inside tumors. As tumors grow they outstrip their oxygen supply. If a cell has a normal p53 gene, the p53 protein will eliminate cancerous cells, keeping tumor growth at bay. Under conditions of stress to the cell – such as radiation or chemotherapy and hypoxia – p53 normally eliminates tumors.
Hypoxia, however, induces p53 to mu
The rice genome is larger, but we make the most of what we’ve got
In April 2003, scientists completed the massive Human Genome Project, recording for the first time in history the location and sequence of every gene in the human body. One result of the international project came as a bit of a shock. Scientists discovered that the body has only 30,000 genes, far fewer than the 50,000 to 140,000 they had expected to find.
Moreover, scientists learned that some less compl
Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have succeeded in discovering and isolating a new protein from the poplar tree with special structural and qualitative characteristics that could have consequences for development of future nanocapsules for drug delivery to cancer cells.
In addition to being obtained from plant tissue, the protein can now also be produced in large quantities as a recombinant protein in bacteria, making it highly available for medicinal or other ap
Subra Suresh has spent the last two decades studying the mechanical properties of engineered materials from the atomic to the structural scale. So, until recently, the head of MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering never thought he’d be a player in the hunt for cures to malaria and pancreatic cancer.
It turns out, however, that Suresh’s expertise in nanotechnology is quite applicable to biology and medicine. With colleagues in engineering, science a
Scientists from MIT’s Center for Cancer Research have developed a new mouse model that closely resembles Li-Fraumeni Syndrome (LFS) in humans, a syndrome that predisposes those affected to a broad range of cancers. Some 95 percent of LFS patients develop cancer by age 65.
This work, which was reported in the Dec. 17 issue of Cell, could lead to a treatment for LFS and aid in the development of treatments for other cancers.
The research shows that a single point mu
The binding of a viral RNA and a viral protein brings about a physical transformation that dupes host cells into enthusiastically copying the invading pathogen, according to a team of researchers from MIT, Harvard, and Harvard Medical School.
In the December 17 issue of Science, collaborators led by Professor Lee Gehrke of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology published dramatic three-dimensional images of RNA-protein interactions in alfalfa mosaic virus (A
Duct tape that never loses its stick. Bandages that come off without sticky residue or an “ouch.”
Gecko feet may hold the key to the development of synthetic self-cleaning adhesives, according to a biologist from Lewis & Clark College. The research is published in the online early edition of the Proceedings from the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, or PNAS (http://www.pnas.org) during the week of Jan. 3, 2005 (Article #08304: “Evidence for self-cleaning in geck
Each year more than 45,000 Americans suffer burns serious enough to require a hospital stay, according to the American Burn Association. While the traditional therapy of using skin grafts to cover burn sites has improved, a number of problems including scarring, infection and poor adhesion remain.
“Skin grafts involve taking skin (both the upper epidermal and the underlying dermis) from an unburned site on the patient’s body or from a cadaver and grafting it on to the burn wound,”
A cell surface protein regarded as a potential troublemaker in the lungs plays an unexpected protective role mitigating the damage caused by chronic pulmonary diseases such as asthma, University of Texas Medical School at Houston scientists report in the January edition of The Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI).
Genetically knocking the protein out of a specialized strain of mouse that models chronic lung disease resulted in higher levels of inflammation, mucus, and tissue
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