In a study to be published in Science online Aug. 6, researchers at Johns Hopkins have found that genes involved in suppressing the body’s defensive “killer” immune cells are a potential key factor in spontaneous recovery from hepatitis C. The viral infection of the liver can lead to cirrhosis, cancer and even death. This genetic factor was found in people assumed to be exposed to a low dose of virus at the time of infection.
“Our findings may help explain why some of the 20 per
A genetic mutation related to a more aggressive form of breast cancer occurs four times more often in African American patients than their white counterparts, Yale researchers report in the August 9, 2004 online edition of the journal Cancer.
In the United States, African-American women have a lower incidence of breast cancer than white women, but they have a higher mortality rate. The disease also develops at an earlier age and is more aggressive in African-American women. To
Further investigation into how the common organism Escherichia coli regulates gene expression has given scientists new ideas for designing antibiotics that might drastically reduce a bacterium’s ability to resist drugs.
The findings, reported in the current issue of the journal Cell, suggest that bacteria rely on a key protein in order to properly regulate gene expression — a process fundamental to cell survival. This protein, called DksA, coordinates the expression of numer
Over the past decade genomics has revolutionized our understanding of how microorganisms cause disease. However, genomic studies need to be extended to a more diverse array of microorganisms and research tools improved to gain additional insights into pathogenesis, according to a new report released by the American Academy of Microbiology.
Genomic studies have placed a comprehensive understanding of pathogenesis in sight, but much work lies ahead, according to the report, The Geno
The secret to cowbird success is to join your nestmates in making noise, then hog the food
America’s brown-headed cowbird and the European cuckoo are the classic parasitic birds, laying their eggs in the nests of other bird species and leaving the chick-rearing to another parent.
But while a cuckoo hatchling thrives by muscling its host’s eggs out of the nest and hogging all the food, a new study by biologists from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University
Penn researchers pinpoint identity of early-stage t-cells circulating in blood
T cells are critically important for human immunological defenses against pathogens, yet little is known about their early development. T cells are made in the thymus, but ultimately come from hematopoietic stem cells in the bone marrow, from which all blood-cell types begin. A progenitor cell must leave the bone marrow to seed the thymus, eventually giving rise to T cells. The identity of this cell has
Researchers have made a significant advance in the understanding of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) by identifying new genetic factors associated with clearing the virus spontaneously without the necessity for additional treatment. Their findings are set out in a paper published in Science magazine today (6 August 2004).
Hepatitis C virus infects the liver and leads to serious permanent liver damage. The infection affects about 170 million people worldwide and up to 500,000 people in th
Nearly 1% of the population is celiac, i.e. they suffer from intolerance to gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley, rye and oats. The problem obliges sufferers to follow a diet based on natural foodstuffs such as legumes, meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruit and rice.
Gluten, in sufferers, produces atrophy of the villi of the intestinal lining, and thus there is insufficient absorption of nutrients. Moreover celiac disease is a pathology that has no known cure, specialists point
An estimated 41,000 new cases of primary brain tumors are expected to be diagnosed in 2004, according to the American Brain Tumor Association. To further narrow the gap between diagnosis and effective therapy, physicians at the University of Pennsylvania Health System now offer several promising approaches to brain tumor treatment, including novel imaging for oncologic neurosurgery and refined genetic testing for tumors to better target treatment.
Through enhanced magnetic resonanc
Scientists have developed an experimental vaccine against ricin, a potential biological threat agent, which fully protected mice from aerosol challenge with lethal doses of the toxin. The study was performed at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID).
Ricin is a toxin derived from the castor plant, which is grown throughout the world for commercial purposes. Approximately one million pounds of castor beans are used each year in the process of man
New method allows scientists to probe fundamental questions of surface science
A team of researchers including University of California, Riverside Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Ludwig Bartels has developed a technique to take extremely fast snapshots of molecular and atomic movement. The development is considered a significant advance in surface science, the study of chemical reactions taking place on the surface of solids.
The results are reported in the current issue of t
Researchers from Rockefeller University are enlisting proteins produced by viruses in a novel strategy that may someday help prevent bacterial infections in hospitals and nursing homes.
Bacterial viruses, or bacteriophage, worm their way into bacterial cells, copy themselves and then, as an exit strategy, produce enzymes that quickly destroy the bacterial cell wall, killing the bacteria and releasing the viral offspring.
“These are highly evolved enzymes that work effic
Findings: UCLA researchers for the first time identified and then stopped a type of adult stem cell from migrating to the lung and contributing to pulmonary fibrosis in an animal model. Pulmonary fibrosis (i.e, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis) in humans is a devastating terminal disorder that causes an overabundance of scar tissue to form in the lung.
Impact: The new study may offer novel therapies to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis– currently there are no effective treatments and the m
It’s a medical mystery: Exactly how do emerging viruses such as SARS, HIV and hantavirus suddenly burst forth, seemingly from nowhere, to start infecting people and causing lethal diseases, sometimes in epidemic proportions?
In research that shines light on this worrisome phenomenon, a team of scientific sleuths based at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) has examined and tested viruses from two late-20th-century outbreaks of Venezuelan equine encephalitis (
The site where Europe’s spacecraft are launched into orbit, the Atlantic shoreline of French Guiana, is also the starting point for another hardly less remarkable journey: the epic migration of the critically endangered leatherback turtle.
Scientists have been using tracking sensors to follow the long treks of individual leatherbacks, then overlaying their routes with sea state data, including near-real time maps of ocean currents gathered by satellites including ESA’s ERS-2
A study by biological anthropologists at University of Kent has revealed that contemporary, British women who believed they had a longer time to live, were more likely to give birth to a son than women who thought that they would die earlier. According to Dr Sarah Johns, who led the research, this may be because it requires more effort to be pregnant with, give birth to, and raise a son to adulthood.
The study, which is published today in the journal Biology Letters, suggests that the sex ra
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