Jacqueline Kim Dale, Ph.D., formerly a Senior Research Associate at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, and Olivier Pourquié, Ph.D., Stowers Institute Investigator and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, have demonstrated that the long-studied family of transcription factors called Snail is expressed in a cyclic fashion during the formation of the vertebral precursors in the mouse and chick embryo.

The findings, which were published in the March 7 issue

The thyroid gland is very sensitive to ionizing radiation. The number of patients with thyroid gland cancer is particularly high among those who endured the Chernobyl catastrophe in childhood. Ultrasonic scanning and bioptic tests investigations are usually used for early detection of thyroid gland cancer but researchers do not stop the search of more efficient methods.

They deal with molecular markers of cancer in order to discover mutation of the genes participating in carcinogenesis.

The Tbilisi researchers J.B. Tkemaladze (Center for systems analysis of Georgia) and K.N. Chichinadze from the Beritashvili Institute of Physiology, Academy of Sciences of Georgia, believe that centrioles – protein structures that participate in animal cell division – are responsible for age-related changes of cells in a multicellular organism. Animal cells can divide for a strictly defined number of times, after which they inevitably perish, and these are centrioles in particular that, in research

Scientists at The University of Manchester have created a new type of ‘bio-gel’ which provides a pH neutral environment for culturing cells in 3D, as published in the journal Advanced Materials (March 2006).

The gel is the first pH neutral material made from combinations of dipeptides (pairs of amino acids) to provide an environment in which cells can be cultured under physiological conditions.

Uniquely, the gel mimics the properties of cell scaffolds which naturally occur

The biotech companies Digna Biotech and Biotherapix have signed an agreement to jointly apply their patented products towards the development of a treatment for pulmonary fibrosis. Digna Biotech is the commercial entity responsible for developing the intellectual property (patents) generated by the CIMA of the University of Navarra in its preclinical, clinical and commercial research.

The focal points of this agreement are the M3 protein owned by Biotherapix and the p17 peptide from Dig

By scanning the entire human genome in search of genetic variations that may signal recent evolution, University of Chicago researchers found more than 700 genetic variants that may be targets of recent natural positive selection during the past 10,000 years of human evolution.

In one of the first comprehensive genome scans for selection, the researchers found widespread evidence of evolution in all of the populations studied. Their results are published and freely available online in t

A mouse immune cell that plays dual roles as both assassin and messenger, normally the job of two separate cells, has been discovered by an international team of researchers from the United States and France. The discovery has triggered a race among scientists to find a human equivalent of the multitasking cell, which could one day be a target for therapies that seek out and destroy cancer.

“In the same way that intelligence and law enforcement agencies can face deadly threats together i

Nerve growth factor makes end run around leptin, a brain hormone linked to appetite regulation

Working on genetically engineered obese mice with seriously thickened hearts, a condition call cardiac hypertrophy, scientists at Johns Hopkins have used a nerve protection and growth factor on the heart to mimic the activity of the brain hormone leptin, dramatically reducing the size of the heart muscle.

Leptin is a protein hormone made by fat cells that signals the brain to

A little clutter on the way to the refrigerator might mean taking a few extra seconds to navigate your way to a late night snack. For a bat flying around in the dark searching for a meal of insects, the “clutter” of things like leaves and trees could mean missing out on a tasty morsel of dinner altogether.

A bat finds its way around with sound rather than sight. Using a sensory process called echolocation, the bat emits ultrasonic pulses that hit objects like leaves, trees, and inse

Upon hearing the blare of a siren, you would quickly home in on the source and direction of the sound and take the necessary action, or precaution, such as pulling your car over or foregoing crossing the street until the ambulance has cleared. Mammals rely on sound localization skills to communicate, escape threats, and forage, among many other tasks. All through development the adult brain retains the capacity to rewire the networks that underlie these skills but it’s not clear which tasks

So-called wobble pairs make RNA more reactive, enhancing protein production

The wealth of information contained in a strand of genetic material boils down to sequences of matched pairs of nucleotides that cellular machinery decodes to construct proteins.

Writing today in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a University of Wisconsin-Madison bacteriologist reveals that mispaired nucleotides in transfer RNA actually make the molecule more adroit, enhancin

A new subtlety in the process of how the body’s nervous system relays information may hinge on how “wet” the “kiss” is when one neuron fires a packet of neurotransmitter across a synapse to a receptive nerve cell.

A team of neuroscientists led by University of Illinois at Chicago biology professor Simon Alford report the finding in the March 14 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Until recently, the neuroscience field was solidly behind

Australian snakes’ venom could provide the next generation of human therapeutic drugs.

A blood-clotting protein in taipan venom has been identified by Queensland University of Technology PhD researcher Liam St Pierre to rapidly stop excessive bleeding during vascular surgery and major trauma.

The genetic code for the toxin, Factor X (Factor Ten), was identified by PhD researcher Liam St Pierre from QUT’s School of Life Sciences who studied the venom of eight of

The dissociation in the visual system between two separate functions – one that enables us to identify objects and the other to interact with them – has been clearly demonstrated for the first time in healthy humans by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

These separate vision-related actions have been documented from the beginning of the 20th century in patients who suffered damage to the visual system as a result of illness or injuries in which one or the other func

In a surprising finding, patients with coronary artery disease who take commonly used antidepressant drugs may be at significantly higher risk of death, Duke University Medical Center researchers have found.

Even after controlling for such factors as age, degree of heart disease and severity of depression, the researchers found that heart patients taking antidepressant medications had a 55 percent higher risk of dying. Previously, Duke researchers reported that the presence of

Why do some overweight people stay healthy (apart from possible musculo-skeletal disorders) while obesity in other individuals leads to complications like diabetes and cardiovascular disease? The explanation lies in the genes. Scientists at the Department of Clinical Sciences at Lund University in Malmö, Sweden , have identified a gene that exists in a special variant in most overweight people, a variant that makes fatty acids “leak” into the blood stream, where they don’t belong.

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