From the munchies to the giggles to paranoia, smoking marijuana causes widespread changes in the brain. Now researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine are a step closer to understanding how the drug’s active ingredients – tetrahydrocannabinol and related compounds, called cannabinoids – may exert their effects.
David Prince, MD, the Edward F. and Irene Thiele Pimley Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, and his colleagues found that a group of neurons that
Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers have found a new way to detect ovarian cancer in the blood. Reported in the Sept. 15, 2004, issue of Cancer Research, the new method targets hypermethylation–one mechanism used by cancer cells to turn off genes that protect against tumor development.
When these tumor-suppressor genes are inactivated by hypermethylation, they cannot do their job, which then allows cancer cells to develop. This research marks the first time hypermethylation has bee
NDUFS6 mutations are a novel cause of lethal neonatal mitochondrial complex I deficiency
A whole range of human muscular and neuromuscular diseases are caused by mutations in the mitochondrial respiratory chain/oxidative phosphorylation system. The problem is that there are about 120 genes involved in this system, some that are found in the mitochondria, and thus inherited through the mother, and some that are found in the nucleus and are inherited from both the mother and the fathe
Roles of thromboxane A2 and prostacyclin in the development of atherosclerosis in apoE-deficient mice
Atherosclerosis is an inflammation in the lining of the arteries. Biological chemicals in the body called pros-tanoids, which are made from the breakdown of arachidonic acid by the action of an enzyme called COX have been implicated in the development of atherosclerosis. The role of prostanoids in inflammation is well known, based on studies of aspirin-like non-steroidal anti-inflamm
When he’s not in the operating room performing surgery, Donald M. O’Rourke, M.D., Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine is fighting brain tumors from the research laboratory bench. He and colleagues are making inroads to understanding the basic molecular biology that makes brain tumors so hard to treat. An estimated 41,000 new cases of primary brain tumors are expected to be diagnosed in 2004, according to the American Brain Tumor Association.
Disease genes, important regulatory elements populate vast terrain
Four years after publicly revealing the official draft human genetic sequence, researchers have reached the halfway point in dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s of the genetic sentences describing how to build a human. The newly finalized chromosome 5 is the 12th chromosome polished off, with 12 more to go. As the new sequence reveals, this chromosome is a genetic behemoth containing key disease genes an
By combining stem cell science with orthopedic surgery, a team of researchers at the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute aims to reduce the 10 per cent failure rate in hip replacements and make repeat replacements and other joint repairs obsolete within 10-15 years .
With $1.5 million over five years in funding from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, a group of seven UBC scientists will explore how stem cells – the body’s “mast
A genetically engineered ’mighty mouse’ is helping Medical College of Georgia researchers find the best way for young people to build bone and avoid osteoporosis.
“We are interested in kids; we want to know how to maximize their bone during peak periods of growth while they still can,” says Dr. Mark Hamrick, bone biologist. “One of the best predictors of who is going to get osteoporosis and who is not is how much bone you have at sexual maturity. So we want to know what
Males pirate and fertilize egg clutches
One of Europe’s most common backyard frogs has been keeping a secret that, despite centuries of study and thousands of published papers, has only now been discovered in ponds in the Pyrenees. The European common frog, Rana temporaria, has long been thought to have a straightforward breeding strategy — one lucky male grabs the female and fertilizes her eggs as soon as she releases them into the water. End of story.
But that&#
Malaria affects around 600 million people in the world and leads to an annual death toll of over 2 million. It is the world’s most widespread parasitic disease. It is caused by Plasmodium falciparum, a pathogen transmitted to humans by a mosquito. In Africa, where malaria is endemic, mosquitoes of the Anopheles genus are the only vectors of the disease. The many studies which have been devoted to them have led to the characterization of different species and the identification, among these, of vect
Little is known about the causes of lymphoma. A case-control study conducted by Professor Nikolaus Becker and Dr. Alexandra Nieters, Division of Clinical Epidemiology at the Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (German Cancer Research Center, DKFZ), is looking closely at possible risk factors. First results of this German lymphoma study suggest immunological factors associated with lifestyle and environment. Too few challenges for the immune system during early childhood may possibly promote not onl
Tail of Ubc12 binds this protein to a larger molecule during a cascade of biochemical reactions that assembles an “on switch” that accelerates cell replication
A unique tail at one end of a protein called Ubc12 stabilizes a molecular workshop that assembles the “on-switch cells” used to accelerate cell replication. This finding, by investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, is published online by the journal Nature Structual and Molecular Biology (NSMB).
The di
A Finnish research group has been the first in the world to publish an article in which BNCT treatment has had an excellent response in a patient with head and neck cancer for whom there was no other treatment available. The case report has been published in the June issue of the prestigious Radiotherapy and Oncology no. 72 (2004) pp. 83 – 84.
BNCT treatment, which was developed for treating difficult brain tumours, has since last year also been given to patients with recurrent hea
May serve as new target for antiviral drugs
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have produced the first molecular-scale images of DNA binding to an adenovirus enzyme — a step they believe is essential for the virus to cause infection. The images, which appear on the cover of the October 2004 issue of Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, show how binding to DNA may stimulate the enzyme and are alre
Researchers have discovered a critical protein that regulates the growth and activation of neural connections in the brain. The protein functions in the developing brain, where it controls the sprouting of new connections and stimulates otherwise silent connections among immature neurons, and potentially in the mature brain as well, where it may play a role in memory formation.
The researchers published their discovery of the protein, called dendrite arborization and synapse matura
Liver cancer genes cluster into two subsets that correlate to survival
An analysis of the gene expression patterns of 91 unrelated liver tumors revealed two distinctive subclasses highly associated with patient survival, according to a new study published in the September 2004 issue of Hepatology.
Hepatology, the official journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., is available online via Wiley InterScience at
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