New target blocks B-ALL, boosts Gleevec’s effectiveness against CML in mice
Three years ago, using the first of a new class of drugs known as “small molecule kinase inhibitors,” medicine slammed shut a door used by cancer. Researchers at The Jackson Laboratory just found another door that kinase inhibitors may close to cancer.
The gene BCR-ABL1 causes two types of leukemia: chronic myelogeneous leukemia (CML) and B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL). In both canc
Researchers find drug that may suppress genetic mutation using a novel screening approach
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have developed a way of identifying promising new drugs that may get around a major challenge in drug discovery. In the May issue of Nature Biotechnology the team from the MGH Cardiovascular Research Center (CVRC) describes using an animal model to screen for a compound that suppresses a serious genetic mutation. Their success did not rely on first i
Johns Hopkins scientists report that restricting the shape and personal space of human stem cells from bone marrow is more important than any known molecular signal in determining the cell type they become.
Understanding the signals that tell stem cells what type of cell to become, and then harnessing those cues to get a single desired cell type, is key to any effort to use these or more primitive embryonic stem cells to regenerate or repair damaged tissue.
In the April issue of D
Key decisions in the genetic shuffling that occurs before eggs or sperm are formed are made earlier than thought, rewriting textbook genetics, according to recent papers from researchers at UC Davis, Harvard University and UC San Diego.
For sexual reproduction to occur, organisms have to form gametes (in animals, gametes are eggs or sperm) with half the usual number of chromosomes, so that when two gametes fuse during fertilization the offspring will have an equal genetic contribution from
Testing for DNA changes in stools might provide a new, accurate, and less invasive way to screen patients for colorectal cancer, conclude the authors of a research letter in this week’s issue of THE LANCET.
Colorectal cancer is one of the most common cancers in the industrialised world, and early detection might help to reduce the risk of death from the disease. However, although several methods of detection are available, these procedures are either uncomfortable for the patient or
Researchers from Taiwan report the identification of a new form of drug-resistant salmonella bacterium in this week’s issue of THE LANCET.
Salmonella enterica serotype choleraesuis usually causes infections that require antimicrobial treatment. Multidrug-resistant strains have been identified, but the antimicrobial ceftriaxone has been effective against them so far.
Professor J T Ou, from Chang Gung University College of Medicine, Taoyuan, Taiwan, and colleagues isolated a s
A study showing how the expression of genes changes when the brain tissue of fruit flies becomes cancerous is published this week in BMC Genomics. As the function of many of these genes is conserved across evolution, the researchers expect their results will help us to understand why human brain tumors develop.
The causes of brain tumor development are largely unknown. To investigate this question, researchers from University of Basel, Switzerland and University of Freiburg, Germany, used mi
New insights into how tumours neutralise CD8 T cells, and a strategy for overcoming the tumour’s response to attack.
It has long been recognised that the immune system is able to recognise and destroy cancer cells, but although the immunological battle might slow the progression or spread of cancer, it’s usually the cancer that eventually wins the war. Scientists have speculated that this may be because the immune response is not strong enough, or because it does not last long enough
Results presented at the Cardiovascular Cell and Gene Therapy Conference II
MacroPore Biosurgery, Inc. (MacroPore; Frankfurt: XMP) (MACP.DE) (XMP:GR) today announced pre-clinical findings that suggest for the first time that adipose-derived regenerative cells have the potential to engraft injured myocardium and express markers consistent with differentiation into cardiac myocytes. These results provide early indication that adipose-derived regenerative cells, which include adult stem
Two Dutch researchers have developed a method for managing so-called batch productions. During a batch production, substances react in a reactor vessel according to a certain recipe to produce an end product. After the reaction the reactor is emptied and a new reaction with the same recipe is started.
Chemist Eric van Sprang and chemical engineer Henk-Jan Ramaker have developed a control method that also takes the relationship between various process parameters into account. The current met
Researchers from the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam have discovered a common link between cancer cells and stem cells. Together with colleagues from the University of Zurich, Merel Lingbeek and NWO pioneer Prof. Maarten van Lohuizen published their findings on 18 March 2004 in Nature.
Because cancer cells and stem cells can both reproduce themselves in unlimited numbers, it was suspected that they have something in common. That suspicion proved to be correct. Together with their
An international team of researchers from the University of Helsinki, GeneOS Ltd. and partner institutions announced today that it has made significant discoveries on the causes of asthma. The team’s study, published in the April 9, 2004 edition of Science, reports two novel asthma genes and a set of diagnostic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).
The implications of the finding are that physicians may be able to identify atopic asthma and allergy patients earlier than is currently poss
A protein involved in the release of neurotransmitters in the brain is essential to learning and memory in mice, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have found.
A study published today in Neuron offers the first evidence that lack of this protein – known as RIM1 alpha – causes profound deficits in the learning process. The discovery is a major step in understanding the molecular events that underlie learning and memory – complex processes that can be impaired in human ne
Rudolf Jaenisch of the Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research in Cambridge, MA reports in the April 6, 2004 online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that introduction of the MeCP2 protein into post-mitotic nerve cells of MeCP2 mutant mice rescues the symptoms of Rett Syndrome. This raises the possibility that neurons are functionally normal in a newborn child and that neural dysfunction manifests itself only later due to prolonged MeCP2 deficiency. If correct, therapeut
Scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign studying vaccinia virus, a close relative of smallpox, have determined that a gene necessary for virus replication also has a key role in turning off inflammation, a crucial anti-viral immune response of host cells.
The discovery, reported this month in the Journal of Virology, potentially broadens the knowledge base of how all poxviruses cause disease and how they may be outwitted by improvements in vaccines against them, said Joa
Researchers are probing details of how HIV commandeers genes in infected cells to disguise itself from the immune system. The researchers, from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, have identified cellular proteins expressed during HIV infection that enable HIV-infected cells to avoid apoptosis, a common cell suicide event. This survival mechanism allows the virus to maintain the infection within the compromised cells.
These findings, as yet based on studies in cells, not in patien
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