Insights may advance vaccines for related viruses including dengue fever

A monoclonal antibody that can effectively treat mice infected with West Nile virus has an intriguing secret: Contrary to scientists’ expectations, it does not block the virus’s ability to attach to host cells. Instead, the antibody somehow stops the infectious process at a later point.

“This was a complete surprise to us, but it gives us some very useful insights,” says senior author D

Virginia Commonwealth University chemists have created a new molecular receptor for a fluorescent dye used to track a drug candidate’s activity inside cell membranes.

These findings may help researchers more efficiently design, evaluate and test new drugs like antibiotics and therapeutics for genetic diseases, such as cystic fibrosis and Bartter’s syndrome, because they will know precisely where the drug is acting inside a cell.

According to the study in the Journal of the

Pedagogues and psychologists involved in education are striving to make training more efficient. To achieve this, it would be useful to understand what happens in a trainee’s brain during learning. Only neurophysiologists can sort that out, however, not everything is clear to them yet.

Thus, it can be expected that memorizsation and reminiscence processes (which make the essence of training) should be reflected in changes of the brain’s electrical activity nature. It means that th

Pain in the back and neck leads to impaired memory and powers of concentration. Moreover, such pain hastens mental aging. This has been shown by Stefan Söderfjell in a new dissertation at Umeå University in Sweden.

People in pain often experience difficulty in concentrating, solving problems, and remembering things. Umeå researcher Stefan Söderfjell has now shown in his doctoral dissertation that people in pain actually do have these problems with their so-called cognitive functions.

Doctors may drive unnecessary procedures

Patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) use over 50 percent more health resources than people without the disorder. Even though there are definitive guidelines to diagnose IBS through simple blood tests, many IBS patients have additional procedures and surgeries that rarely result in relief or any additional diagnostic findings.

“It is difficult to know why patients with IBS have such a high use of healthcare resources, and

Scientists at Rosalind Franklin University publish new findings in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics

A methamphetamine epidemic rages across the United States with addicts blinded by uncontrollable desires for a drug that eventually thrusts them into a dire and catastrophic existence. Doctors don’t have any effective treatments for these addicts, or for any other drug addicts; drug addiction is a disease that remains a medical mystery. A recent study led

Extraordinary creatures who inhabit extreme underwater conditions are being investigated by University scientists in a three-year project. These deep-sea communities could reveal an evolutionary history different to anything else on earth and even give us clues to how life could exist on other planets.

The creatures live around hydrothermal vents – incredibly hot environments in the deep sea – and are unique because they depend on bacteria living inside them for their own survi

A discovery by Institute of Food Research (IFR) scientists is set to improve the food industry’s ability to predict foodborne botulism.

Botulism is a severe and often deadly disease caused by toxin-producing spores of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. The spores remain harmless until they find a suitable, anaerobic environment in which to germinate. After germination, there is a short “lag time” until rapid cell division begins.

Lead author of the newly published st

With a new DNA test, tuberculosis infection can be revealed so quickly that a patient doesn’t have time to infect others. This can be an important key to effective control of the disease.

The Norwegian biotechnology firm Genpoint is running trials, along with others financed by the Norwegian Research Council’s biotechnology program, of new and effective DNA tests at Ullevål University Hospital, the country’s national laboratory for tuberculosis.

Norwegian health officia

The Swiss Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Villigen and Siemens Medical Solutions (Med) in Erlangen, Germany, have recently signed a cooperation contract. Both partners agreed to a closer collaboration in proton therapy planning – an important component of a particle therapy solution.

Within the scope of the agreement, Siemens has access to the know-how of the therapy planning system at the Paul Scherrer Institute. Both partners are joining forces to further develop proton the

Medics at The University of Manchester have discovered a way to treat Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) using hypnotherapy.

Up to eight million people in Britain suffer from IBS, with symptoms including diarrhoea, pain and bloating. The condition can seriously affect sufferers’ quality of life and finding treatment can be difficult, leading many doctors to feel they can do little to help.

Research by Peter Whorwell, Professor of Medicine and Gastroenterology in the Universi

It won’t be long before automated DNA test contribute to providing more knowledge about the up to now nearly unknown sexually transmitted mycoplasma – truly more widespread than chlamydia. Mycoplasma is a bacterial infection of the genitals.

More effective and comprehensive testing of target groups could reveal more about the as yet little studied sexually transmitted bacterial disease mycoplasma, just is as already done to demonstrate other sexually transmitted illnesses such as

At first glance airplane wings and human hearts have little in common, but, say a team of European researchers, a technology used to measure airflow over wings can now be used to help keep hearts in working order.

The researchers optimised a Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) system traditionally used to improve the aerodynamics of aircraft wings to make it capable of accurately measuring the effects of medical implants on blood flow. Their work will allow medical device manufactu

Institut Curie and Inserm research scientists and physicians have just shown that precise knowledge of alterations in chromosome 1 can be used to improve the treatment of gliomas, the most frequent brain tumors in adults. Diagnosis and treatment of these tumors are difficult because of their heterogeneity and variable malignancy. Using DNA chips, the authors of this report were able to distinguish the tumors with the best prognosis, whose chromosome 1 has undergone a specific deletion. Screening

This research work developed a number of synthetic methodologies for the synthesis of various isoquinolinic alkaloids. They all have in common the use of b-aminoalcohols as the source of chirality operating as auxiliaries or as chiral blocks.

Thus, the employment of (S,S)-(+)-pseudoephedrine as chiral auxiliary enables access to enriched enantiomeric arylglycines, precursors of 3-aryltetrahydroisoquinolines, by means of a synthetic methodology applicable to the stereocontrolled

Big apes share more than 90% of our genome and still we are undoubtedly very different. So what is it that gives us our unique “humanness” and higher intelligence ? In an article about to be published in the ’journal Medical Hypotheses’ a group of Portuguese researchers propose that the differences which separate apes and humans, such as brain size and intellect, can be explained by differences in thyroid and steroids hormones.

It is now well accepted that intelligence is de