Changes in the tissue environment of the breast that occur after pregnancy promote the metastasis of breast tumor cells. The paper by McDaniel et al., “Remodeling of the mammary microenvironment following lactation promotes breast tumor cell metastasis,” appears in the February issue of The American Journal of Pathology and is accompanied by a commentary.

This work also highlights an important shift in thinking about what influences cancers to metastasize: the move from stu

The high-fat “diet” that diabetic heart muscle consumes helps make cardiovascular disease the most common killer of diabetic patients, according to a study done at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The study will appear in the February 7 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and is now available online.

Sixty-five percent of people with diabetes die from heart attack or stroke. When the researchers investigated fuel consumption in heart

Obesity, long known as a cause of type II diabetes, may accelerate the onset of type 1 diabetes in some – but not all – groups of younger patients, according to research at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and six clinical sites nationally.

“The increasing prevalence of childhood obesity may substantially account for the younger age at onset of type 1 diabetes observed in various populations,” said the research team, writing in the February issue of Diabetes Care.

The Dermatochemistry laboratory of the University Louis Pasteur’s Institute of Chemistry (Strasbourg 1) becomes a partner in the integrated European research project Sens-it-iv whose aim is to develop alternative methods to animal testing in the area of allergy.

Even though animal experimentation remains, for the moment, the most reliable way of testing the allergenic potential of a chemical substance, the wish of the European Union is to gradually reduce the number of animals use

May lead to future treatments for heart failure, nerve disorders

Researchers worldwide are seeking to define ancient sections of our genetic code that may soon be as important to medical science as genes. A new wave of research is concerned with, not how genes work, but how small regulatory DNA sequences tell genes where, when and to what degree to “turn on.” As part of this effort, researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center scanned through the vast human DNA cod

The two ends of human DNA have different structures that are treated differently as a cell divides, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found in a study that could help lead to cancer therapies.

The study — published in the Feb. 3 issue of the journal Molecular Cell — focuses on the ends of DNA, which are capped by segments called telomeres. Each time the cell divides, the telomeres shorten. When they become too short, the aging cell can no longer divide. But in most

Duke University biologists have evolved a complex trait in the laboratory — using the pressure of selection to induce tobacco hornworms to evolve the dual trait of turning black or green depending on the temperature during their development. The biologists have also demonstrated the basic hormonal mechanism underlying the evolution of such dual traits.

Their experiments, they said, offer important insight into how complex traits involving many genes can abruptly “blossom” in

When cells age and stop dividing, how much do they contribute to whole-body aging? Brown University research strengthens the case for a strong connection by providing evidence that non-dividing or “replicatively senescent” cells can be found in large numbers in old animals. The research, led by John Sedivy, is the first to quantify the presence of these cells in any species. Results are published by Science.

Brown University biologists have uncovered intriguing evidence to suppor

A new study suggests that the hormone estrogen works in partnership with other proteins to activate or suppress gene activity in breast cancer cells.

Surprisingly, one of the partner proteins is known as c-MYC, a gene activator that has long been associated with cancer development but was not known to interact with estrogen during tumor progression.

The study, by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and R

Researchers at Johns Hopkins and the University of Minnesota have discovered a gene mutation in the descendants of Abraham Lincoln’s grandparents that suggests the Civil War president himself might have also suffered from a disease that destroys nerve cells in the cerebellum– the part of the brain that controls movement. A report on this discovery will appear in the February print issue of Nature Genetics.

The joint finding of the SCA5 mutation comes over a decade after initial

Researchers at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) at Virginia Tech, Colorado State University, and Duke University Medical Center have developed a new method to determine gene function on a genome-wide scale in the fungal pathogen Alternaria brassicicola. This destructive fungus causes black spot disease, leading to considerable leaf loss in such economically important crops as canola, cabbage, and broccoli.

Genomic methods that allow the disruption of several thousand gene

An international research team believes that changes in behaviour among the population have accelerated the recent decline in HIV infection in Eastern Zimbabwe.

Research published today in Science shows how there has been an almost 50 percent decline in HIV prevalence in some groups, which the researchers attribute to people delaying when they first have sex and having fewer casual partners.

They found HIV prevalence fell most steeply at young ages, with a drop in prevalence

Neurologist Mike Harrington of Pasadena, California’s Huntington Medical Research Institutes argues that soon we may be able to detect brain disease before symptoms even begin. The secret is in the cerebrospinal fluid, the clear liquid that cushions our brain and spinal cord.

As guest editor for the January 2006 issue of the respected medical journal Disease Markers (Volume 22, Issues 1-2), published by IOS Press, which was themed to the study of neural markers, Harrington

Goal to reduce disease in blood vessels

Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center today announced that they have launched a study to determine whether an experimental drug, rimonabant, can slow atherosclerosis, the fatty build-up in arteries that creates heart attack risk. In recent studies, rimonabant has been shown to decrease body weight, improve abnormal levels of blood sugars and fats (cholesterol) and to help willing patients quit smoking. Now researchers hop

Scientists at the Oregon National Primate Research Center at Oregon Health & Science University believe they have helped dispel the myth that late-night eating causes weight gain. The research is published in the current edition of the journal Obesity Research.

“We’ve all been told at one point in our lives that we should avoid eating meals late at night as it will lead to weight gain. However, our research in rhesus monkeys, which are considered an excellent model for stu

Doctors in Italy are studying whether a new type of mouthwash will help alleviate pain for patients suffering from head and neck cancer who were treated with radiation therapy, according to a study published in the February 1, 2006, issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, the official journal of ASTRO, the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology.

Fifty patients, suffering from various forms of head and neck cancer and who received radiation