The leech has recently confirmed its biomedical interest for scientists by showing that it contains an extensive list of new potential molecules that may become useful tools in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. The details of this research appear in the October issue of Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, an American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology journal.

Scientists have increasingly turned to blood-feeding invertebrates as a source for drugs and lead c

UCSD scientists have gained a better understanding of how repetitive stretching of endothelial cells that line arteries can make them healthy and resistant to vascular diseases.

UCSD researchers stretched cells in a workout chamber the size of a credit card to gain a better understanding of how repetitive stretching of endothelial cells that line arteries can make them healthy and resistant to vascular diseases.

Bioengineering researchers at UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineer

Hip replacement outcomes could become far more predictable thanks to a revolutionary virtual surgery system developed by European researchers.

The IST-funded MULTISENSE project combined virtual reality, force-feedback systems, tissue profiling and stereoscopic vision to create virtual patients that mimic the tissue of real patients. Surgeons can now perform a hip-replacement operation on a virtual copy of their real patient.

More importantly, after the virtual surgery doc

Scientists have discovered that schizophrenia sufferers are not fooled by a visual illusion and are able to judge it more accurately than non-schizophrenic observers. The study by UCL (University College London) and King’s College London suggests that in everyday life, schizophrenics take less account of visual context. If this is part of a more general failure to deal appropriately with context, it could explain why some sufferers might misattribute people’s actions or feel persecuted.

There is another use for botulinum toxin which has brought relief to some who suffer from migraines and eye spasms. Botulinum toxin can also successfully treat intense facial pain called trigeminal neuralgia, according to a study published in the October 25, 2005, issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Trigeminal neuralgia is a disorder characterized by sudden, severe, stabbing, or shock-like pain usually felt on one side of the jaw or che

A Mayo Clinic allergist and colleagues representing the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology and the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology announce they are revising the old classification of asthma patients by disease severity to determine treatment and moving to a new expectation for all asthma patients: excellent symptom control. Complete or total control is also a realistic goal for a subset of patients, according to new guidelines for treating asthma published in t

Electronic medical records are touted as a great way to prevent medical errors, but researchers are reporting that this new technology may also be just what the doctor ordered for clinical trial recruitment.

A new study led by Peter Embi, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Cincinnati (UC) and researcher at UC’s Institute for the Study of Health, shows that by using the tools of an electronic medical record system in a new way, it’s possible to increa

Sildenafil citrate (Viagra), a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction (ED) in millions of men, reduces the stimulatory effects of hormonal stress on the heart by half, according to results of a new study by researchers at Johns Hopkins.

While sildenafil is more widely known for helping genital blood vessels expand to maintain an erection and, more recently, as a treatment for pulmonary hypertension, it has been thought to have little direct effect on the human heart.

In

Due to the 2005 Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine received by Robin Warren and Barry Marshall, the name of the Helicobacter pylori bacterium is now a buzz word. According to contemporary overview, the bacterium gets into the stomach with food and water. In adverse conditions (stress, malnutrition, genetic factors, etc.), the bacterium invades the wall of the stomach or the duodenum under the mucous membrane and produces toxins destroying the walls. This is how gastritis originates, turnin

Both nanotubes and airborne particles cause platelets to clump together

Carbon nanoparticles – both those unleashed in the air by engine exhaust and the engineered structures thought to have great potential in medical applications – promote blood-clotting, scientists report in an upcoming edition of the British Journal of Pharmacology.

Researchers from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and Ohio University examined the impact of various forms of ca

A team of researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center has discovered an entirely new mechanism of action for a novel pharmacological agent currently in clinical trials in patients – the kinase inhibitor BAY 43-9006 – which was designed to disrupt the survival pathways of tumor cells.

“This agent was originally designed to inhibit the Raf-1 pathway, which is frequently mutated in many types of cancers, including leukemia,” said Steven Grant, M.D., Mas

Scientists find structure relevant to cell growth and cancer

Researchers discovered a special type of molecular structure that helps keep genes properly turned off until the structure is ejected from those genes in a regulated manner to help turn the genes on. The discovery is reported in the Oct. 21 issue of the journal Cell by scientists from the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah.

In all organisms, the genome is split into chromosomes (compressed long

Inhaling a small dose of nitric oxide gas may one day help sickle cell patients avoid pain crises and live healthier lives, researchers say.

Nitric oxide may help normalize a sickle cell patient’s hemoglobin by restoring the natural charge and shape to the oxygen-carrying component of red blood cells, Medical College of Georgia researchers have found.

“Hemoglobin S plus nitric oxide behaves much like normal adult hemoglobin, which does not sickle,” says Dr. C. Alvin

Ten genes that may make patients more or less susceptible to a common anesthetic agent have been identified by researchers using tiny worms and sophisticated technology that eliminates the activity of individual genes.

“We are anesthetizing 25 million patients a year in the United States alone; we put them to sleep and wake them up and we still don’t know a lot about why it happens,” said Dr. Steffen E. Meiler, vice chair of research for the Medical College of Georgia Departmen

The European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products (EMEA) has designated, as an orphan medicine, one of the 18 patents of the Centro de Investigación Médica Aplicada (CIMA) at the University of Navarre. This approval, achieved by the Digna Biotech biotechnological company, will facilitate the clinical development of its p144 peptide in the treatment of two symptoms of skin disease: local and systemic scleroderma.

The aim of Digna Biotech (www.dignabiotech.com) is the d

According to Dr. Jesús García-Foncillas, Director of the Department of Oncology at the University Hospital (University of Navarra), molecular studies in cancer of the colon will contribute to the establishment of more efficient and less toxic treatments.

A deep understanding of the tumour process facilitates knowledge of the molecular mechanisms that need to be activated in order to reverse the cancerous process. The following step is to look for new therapeutic strategies base