A Queensland PhD student’s discovery speeds up tissue growth and repair and sparks off a new listed biotech company.
“The key to recovering from a burn or a wound is the ability for cells to move and grow. We have discovered a naturally occurring novel complex of growth factors that speeds this process up,” says Jennifer Kricker, finalist in the Fresh Innovators forum and co-discoverer of the complex, now called VitroGro. “Speeding up healing reduces the risk of infection and scar
Sporting technology has been used on lizards to watch them run.
The same camera that analysed the bowling action of Sri Lankan cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan is being used to study how dragon lizards can escape a bigger, faster predator – the goanna. “It’s all in the running action,” says zoologist, Chris Clemente from the University of Western Australia.
His work has shown that lizards have adapted their locomotion to fit with their habitats. For example, the dragon liz
The new Centre for Applied Medicine Research (CIMA) will be officially opened at the University of Navarre (Universidad de Navarra).
More than 15,000 square metres on four floors will be given over to investigative work – both basic and clinical – by some 350 biologists, doctors, pharmacologists and technicians. Those responsible for the project wished to direct their efforts in four areas of research involving 90 per cent of deaths in the West. The CIMA scientists will work within t
Scientists are a step closer to understanding the health benefits of drinking red wine. Researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and affiliated with the Salk Institute in San Diego, Calif., have succeeded in converting chalcone synthase, a biosynthetic protein enzyme found in all higher plants, into an efficient resveratrol synthase. Resveratrol, a beneficial component of red wine, is thought to contribute to the improved cardiovascular effects associated with moderate consumpt
Marine biologists want to find out more about the Giant Pacific Octopus, but this elusive creature doesn’t willingly reveal its secrets.
Divers can follow the octopus for short periods, but what’s really needed is an undersea robot that will wait patiently outside the creature’s den, ready to shadow its every move. UA engineering undergrads, in collaboration with students from two other universities, are building a mini-sub to answer this need. In July, they took a prototype to Ala
Improved production of polyunsaturated fats in oilseed crops will benefit human health and the environment
In research reported this month in The Plant Cell, scientists succeeded in producing genetically modified linseed plants that accumulate significant levels of very long chain poly-unsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) in seed. This is the first report of the successful engineering of very long chain PUFA into an oilseed crop, and is an excellent example of how genetic engineering of ag
Study published in Science also finds answers to the question: How do cells know to grow?
Researchers at Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah and a collaborator at the University of California at Santa Cruz report they have developed a unique computational approach to investigate a regulatory network for gene expression that is implicated in cell growth and development. The study was published today in the journal Science.
“When studying the genome of
Maggie Hart, a South Dakota School of Mines and Technology paleontology student, recently found a rare, beaked whale that washed ashore on St. Catherine’s Island off the coast of Georgia.
At the time of her discovery in late July, Hart, a master’s degree candidate from Brea, Calif., was working on the St. Catherine’s Island Sea Turtle Conservation Program. In her studies of sea turtles, Hart is collaborating with Mike Knell of Council Bluffs, Iowa. Knell also is a Te
Mayo Clinic researchers have used a comparative genomic strategy to demonstrate a causative link between eosinophils, a rare type of white blood cell, and asthma. Their research shows that the presence of these unique blood cells is absolutely required for the development of asthma. The details of this animal-based study appear in the Sept. 17, 2004, issue of Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
For more than a century, scientists
A new study by researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center sheds light on the key mechanisms by which new pancreatic beta cells normally form in response to insulin resistance. These findings may some day help researchers devise ways of staving off full-blown diabetes.
Insulin resistance is a condition in which the body needs increasing amounts of insulin to function properly, including keeping blood glucose levels in the normal range. It is a major contributor to type 2 diabetes, obesi
The way that HIV disables the body’s natural defences against retroviruses is not as well understood as recent studies suggest, according to new research published in the Open Access journal Retrovirology. Klaus Strebel and his colleagues from NIH found that the HIV encoded Vif protein does not need to destroy the enzyme APOBEC3G within infected cells to disable it. This latest finding has serious implications for the design of antivirals to fight HIV.
APOBEC3G is one of the most
Multidisciplinary teams to study animal movement, genetic links to outside world
How exactly do animals move? How do organisms adapt to newly acquired genes? What genetic forces draw members of an ecological community together? And does social behavior originate in nature, nurture or both? To tackle these and other major questions in biology, the National Science Foundation (NSF) today announced six new awards totaling nearly $30 million over five years from its Frontiers in Integrat
Severe infections with Group A streptococci, sometimes called “flesh-eating killer bacteria,” are considerably more common than expected in many countries. In an EU project covering 11 countries, headed by Lund University in Sweden, it was calculated that some 1,000 cases would be found over an initial 1½-year period. Fully 5,000 were identified.
Group A streptococci, GAS, can sometimes occur in the throat without the carrier noticing anything. In other cases, the bacteria can cause
A recently discovered disinfection byproduct (DBP) found in U.S. drinking water treated with chloramines is the most toxic ever found, says a scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who tested samples on mammalian cells.
The discovery raises health-related questions regarding an Environmental Protection Agency plan to encourage all U.S. water-treatment facilities to adopt chlorine alternatives, said Michael J. Plewa [PLEV-uh], a genetic toxicologist in the depart
Fruit flies have cells that function like a miniature pancreas. That’s good news not only for the flies, but also for researchers hoping to use the tiny insects to develop cures for diabetes.
Almost two years ago Seung Kim, MD, PhD, assistant professor of developmental biology and of medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and colleagues including then-postdoctoral scholar Eric Rulifson, PhD, found cells in the fruit fly brain that make insulin. These cells tel
Close your eyes and acutely listen to the sounds around you, and you’ll find you’re able not only to accurately place the location of sounds in space, but their motion. Imagine then that, strangely, you suddenly became unable to distinguish the motion of sounds, even while you retained the ability to pinpoint their location. That’s exactly the experience of a patient reported by Christine Ducommun and her colleagues, who used studies of the patient to demonstrate conclusively for th
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