Researchers of the Pablo de Olavide University (Seville)have started a project based on the study of phenotype techniques in mice and their applicability to the pharmaceutical industry and neurodegenerative medicine. It is a research conducted by the group ‘División de Neurociencias’, led by José María Delgado, that focuses on the development of new techniques for studying the behaviour and physiology of wild and transgenic mice’s nervous system.

The goal of this Excellence Project, funde

Findings could lead to new therapeutic approaches to a major disease

According to the new study, the presence of caspase-12, which appears to modulate inflammation and innate immunity in humans, increases the body’s “vulnerability to bacterial infection and septic shock” while a deficiency confers strong resistance to sepsis. This new discovery suggests that caspase-12 antagonists could be a potentially useful in the treatment of sepsis and other inflammatory and immune di

Scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have developed a new method for analyzing the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) of the human genome. This large region, found on chromosome 6, encodes more than 400 known genes. The best known of these genes are the HLA genes that govern tissue type and participate in the immune system by protecting people from infection or by governing susceptibility to autoimmune diseases or cancer.

The researchers’ new lab method is descri

Not all biological weapons are created equal. They are separated into categories A through C, category A biological agents being the scariest: They are easy to spread, kill effectively and call for special actions by the pubic health system. One of these worrisome organisms is anthrax, which has already received its fair share of media attention. But work in Vince Fischetti’s laboratory at Rockefeller University suggests that a newly discovered protein could be used to fight anthrax infections

Pinpointing cause of fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP) will accelerate development of treatments for FOP and common bone disorders

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have located the “skeleton key,” a gene that, when damaged, causes the body’s skeletal muscles and soft connective tissue to undergo a metamorphosis into bone, progressively locking joints in place and rendering movement impossible. Identifying the gene that causes fibrod

The Unique Protein Responsible for Werner’s Syndrome Aids Research in Cancer and Aging

Contact: Paul Preuss, (510) 486-6249, paul_preuss@lbl.gov

A team of scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Scripps Research Institute has determined the crystal structure and molecular mechanisms of a key part of WRN, a protein that protects humans from premature aging and cancer.

When the gene for WRN is defective the result is Werner’

Findings shed light on mechanism of condition associated with heart disease, type 2 diabetes

Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have shown, for the first time, that blocking the action of a critical protein can improve multiple inflammatory pathways in patients with the metabolic syndrome – a cluster of symptoms associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. If supported in future studies, the findings may suggest new strategies

Norrbottnian congenital insensitivity to pain, a disease that brings complete insensitivity even to injuries that cause severe pain in healthy people, is caused by a mutation in a gene on chromosome 1. This has been shown in a dissertation by Jan Minde at Umeå University in Sweden.

A life without pain may be thought to be desirable and is no doubt seen by many as an ideal existence. But pain is the body’s way of warning us of impending injury and is thus an important defense mechanism in dai

New York University’s Alexej Jerschow, an assistant professor of chemistry, and Norbert Müller, a professor of chemistry at the University of Linz in Austria, have developed a completely non-invasive imaging method. Their work offers the benefits of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) while eliminating patients’ exposure to irradiation and setting the stage for the creation of light, mobile MRI technology. The research, which appears in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academ

Researchers at the MUHC in Montreal have documented a severe case of internal hemorrhaging in a patient that drank chamomile tea and used chamomile lotion while taking anti-coagulant medication for a heart condition. The 70-year old patient was admitted to the MUHC ER in Montreal after using chamomile to help soothe her sore throat. The case published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) this week, highlights the need for caution when taking alternative (natural) therapies while on ph

Daily monitoring of C-reactive protein levels could help in the prediction of infections acquired in the intensive care unit. A study published today in the journal Critical Care reveals that a daily variation of C-reactive protein (CRP) levels greater than 4.1 mg/dl is a good marker for prediction of infection. The authors of the study also identify different patterns of CRP level progression, associated with different predictions of infection, which could guide antibiotic prescription.

A rare Patagonian rodent known as the colonial tuco-tuco fascinates biologists because it seems to defy all odds. This threatened species has so little genetic diversity that the slightest whiff of climate change or disease should have wiped it off the face of the earth long ago. Yet the hearty gopher-like creature has not only managed to survive for thousands of years in the harsh climate of the Argentine highlands, it has evolved a complex social structure that’s unique among the more than

A discovery made at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute provides new insights into enhancing the function of the protein SOCS3, which regulates the response of cells to external stimuli.

SOCS3 (Suppressors of Cytokine Signalling) controls the responses of cells to cytokines (growth factors). It is important that cytokine signalling is properly regulated within the human body. If SOCS3 permits cytokine signalling to be too “loud”, then the excess of growth signals can cause crippl

Cellulose–a fibrous molecule found in all plants–is the most abundant biological material on Earth. It is also a favored target of renewable, plant-based biofuels research. Despite overwhelming interest, scientists know relatively little about how plant cells synthesize individual cellulose fibers.

However, recent work from the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Plant Biology and Stanford University describes the first real-time observations of cellulose fiber formation. The re

New research shows that a protein made by a cancer virus causes infected immune cells to cling to other immune cells, enabling the virus to spread.

The virus, the human T lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1), is transmitted mainly when infected cells known as T lymphocytes, or T cells, touch uninfected T cells.

The finding helps explain how this cell-to-cell transmission happens. It suggests that an HTLV-1 protein known as p12 activates infected T cells and causes them to

Researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center have developed a new technique to speed discovery of drug targets in chemical genetics. As highlighted on the April cover of Chemistry & Biology, Fox Chase researcher Jeffrey R. Peterson, Ph.D., and his colleagues describe a new way to swiftly find the proteins targeted by small molecule inhibitors during high-throughput screening (HTS) experiments. The new work offers a critical solution to a common stumbling block in this booming field of drug discovery.