Telomere crisis is an important early event in the development of breast cancer, and its occurrence can be identified with precision, according to recent findings by a team of scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at San Francisco. Their report is now available through advance online publication of Nature Genetics.
Joe Gray, director of Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division and a professor of laboratory medicin
The expression pattern of certain genes may someday help doctors to diagnose and predict whether or not an individual has an aggressive form of B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), Jefferson cancer researchers have found.
Scientists, led by Carlo Croce, M.D., director of Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center and professor and chair of microbiology and immunology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, looked at the expression of genes that
Using a new molecular genetic technique, scientists have turned procrastinating primates into workaholics by temporarily suppressing a gene in a brain circuit involved in reward learning. Without the gene, the monkeys lost their sense of balance between reward and the work required to get it, say researchers at the NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
“The gene makes a receptor for a key brain messenger chemical, dopamine,” explained Barry Richmond, M.D., NIMH Labo
Investigators from an international consortium of research institutes, including the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, have identified compounds that mimic the effects of a low calorie diet without changing the amount of essential nutrients. The researchers believe it may be possible to design drugs that imitate many of the beneficial effects of calorie restriction resulting in the prevention of diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer, which are more common in people w
The difference in size between males and females of the same species is all down to the battle for a mate, according to a study of shorebirds published by British scientists today (August 9 2004).
The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are the first explanation for a rule identified over forty years ago by German scientist Bernhard Rensch.
Rensch’s rule, as it has become known, says that the ratio between the sizes of the sexes is
A “stink fight” between ring-tailed lemurs might be dead serious to them. But to observers, the scented struggle ranks among the more odd, even comical sights at the Duke University Primate Center — already renowned for the biological eccentricities of its exotic denizens.
Preparations for battle begin when male combatants load their “weapons” — vigorously rubbing their tails against their shoulders and between their wrists, infusing the fur with scent from glands there.
Science can put a dent in the sex life of a scarab beetle by blocking its ability to pick up female scent, according to Walter Leal, professor of entomology at UC Davis. The research could eventually lead to methods to control insect pests without affecting harmless or beneficial insects.
“Chemical communication is the prime means of communication in insects,” Leal said. If those communications can be controlled in the environment, insect pests could be prevented from breeding, he
Advances in biomedical imaging are allowing UC Davis researchers to use mice more effectively to study cancers comparable to human disease. The system can distinguish different stages of cancer and could lead to more sensitive screening tests for cancer-fighting drugs.
Positron emission tomography (PET) is widely used for detecting and following cancer in human patients. It works by following short-lived radioactive tracers that are taken up by fast-growing cancer cells.
Day-active bees, such as the honeybee, are well known for using visual landmarks to locate a favoured patch of flowers, and to find their way home again to their hive. Researchers have now found that nocturnal bees can do the same thing, despite experiencing light intensities that are more than 100 million times dimmer than daylight. The new findings, reported in the latest issue of Current Biology by a team led by Eric Warrant at Lund University, Sweden, advance our understanding of the visual
The Australian dingo descends from domesticated dogs that people from Southeast Asia brought with them to Australia some 5,000 years ago. Genetic studies indicate that it is probably a matter of a single occasion and a very small number of dogs.
The story begins when a few domestic dogs originally originating from East Asia, jump ashore from a boat. “No matter how you get to Australia, you have to travel across open seas for at least 50 km-a journey no large land-based animal has eve
Malaria drug blocks brain conduits, a boon for neuroscience research
Brown University researchers have discovered that mefloquine, an anti-malarial drug, blocks two gap junction proteins, or connexins, in low doses and with very few side effects in the brains of laboratory mice. The work opens an important door: Connexins found in high concentrations in the brain are believed to play a critical role in movement, vision and memory.
To understand how these communication “tun
A defect in blood vessel formation in human placenta due to loss of LBP-1a gene is linked to spontaneous abortion, infant death and long-term neurological or cardiovascular problems
The lack of a gene called LBP-1a in the mouse embryo prevents normal growth of blood vessels in the placenta. This finding suggests that a similar defect in humans could play a role in fetal growth retardation, infant mortality and spontaneous abortion. These results, by investigators at St. Jude Children&
If brain size is proportional to body size in virtually all vertebrate animals, Cornell University biologists reasoned, shouldn’t eye size and body size scale the same way? While they failed to find a one-size-fits-all rule for eyes, what they learned about the 300 vertebrates they studied helps to explain how animals evolved precisely the orbs they need for everyday life.
The biologists reported their findings in the journal Vision Research (August 2004, “The allometry and scalin
A technique developed by University of California, San Diego biologists, which uses bright fluorescent dyes to reveal the activity of genes in individual cells of an organism, promises to be a boon to developmental biologists, and may provide new insight into how cancerous tumors begin and grow.
The advance, described in the August 6 issue of Science, allows researchers, for the first time, to simultaneously visualize the activity of multiple genes in the same cell. The combination o
First evidence of the molecular link between inflammation and cancer has been shown by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine. Featured as the cover article in the August 6, 2004 issue of the journal Cell, the study also demonstrated that inactivation of a gene involved in the inflammatory process can dramatically reduce tumor development in mice with a gastrointestinal form of cancer.
The investigators found that a gene called I-kappa-B kinas
A new gene-silencing technique that takes place in the nucleus of human cells, has been demonstrated by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine and the VA San Diego Healthcare System. The technique, called transcriptional gene silencing (TGS), provides a new research tool to study gene function and, if continuing studies prove the concept, it could potentially become a method for therapeutic modification or the expression of disease-producing genes.
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