Yale School of Medicine researchers identified a gene prevalent in the population that controls the clinical severity of asthma, according to their report in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Richard Bucala, M.D., professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and senior author of the study, said that once you have asthma, there are genes that are going to control how bad it is.

“Asthma patients who have high production variants of t

He has labored for years over trying to understand and detail the behavior of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) receptor, a protein which plays an important role in tumor growth. Several years ago he and his co-workers discovered that normal cells lacking the IGF-1 receptor gene could not be made to turn cancerous. He found that when they “knocked out” IGF-1 receptors in cancer cells, the cells self-destructed, meaning the IGF-1 receptor was somehow necessary for tumor cell growth. Companie

Researchers in Adelaide, Australia have found that a commercially available dietary supplement can improve the attention and behaviour of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

“The parents of children who spent 15 weeks on a course of capsules containing a combination of fish oil and primrose oil reported increased attention and reduced hyperactivity, restlessness and impulsivity,” says Natalie Sinn from the University of South Australia and CSIRO Nutri

Benefits of Azilect seen when given alone or on top of concomitant dopamine agonist therapy

New data presented in an oral presentation session, at the 9th congress of the European Federation of Neurological Societies, showed that treatment with Azilect (rasagiline 1 mg) once daily can provide significant additional benefits to levodopa treated patients with moderate to advanced Parkinson’s disease (PD). These benefits were seen regardless of whether patients were receiving additi

Researchers at the University of South (USF) have found that green tea may offer another potential health benefit — protecting the brain against the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease.

In an article published Sept. 21 in the Journal of Neuroscience, USF researchers report that a component of green tea prevented Alzheimer’s-like damage in the brains of mice genetically programmed to develop the neurodegenerative disease process. The component, called epigallocatechin-3

Yale School of Medicine researchers have identified three rapid diagnostic methods that can target antibodies commonly found in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, greatly improving potential diagnosis and treatment.

The team reports their findings in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academies of Science. MS is a crippling neurological disease resulting from damage to myelin insulation surrounding nerve fibers, and to nerve fibers themselves. MS symptoms can include m

An international team of medical experts led by a Virginia Commonwealth University researcher has established the first clinical guidelines to help improve the diagnosis and treatment of people with normal pressure hydrocephalus, a debilitating condition in the brain that often goes undiagnosed or is misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease.

The international advisory panel led by Anthony Marmarou, Ph.D., professor of neurosurgery and director of research in the Virgin

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have found a way of identifying families at high risk of pancreatic cancer.

The team has developed a novel means of testing for pancreatic cancer that will enable doctors to treat the killer disease at its earliest stages. They are also now able to show how the risk of cancer for these patients changes with age.

The Liverpool-based study group known as EUROPAC (European Registry Of Hereditary Pancreatitis And Familial Pancreat

Recent research suggested that ancient Neanderthals might have had an accelerated childhood compared to that of modern humans but that seems flawed, based on a new assessment by researchers from Ohio State University and the University of Newcastle .

They found that the rate of tooth growth present in the Neanderthal fossils they examined was comparable to that of three different populations of modern humans.

And since the rate of tooth growth has become a more-accepted to

A new study has identified a molecular defect in cardiac cells that may be a fundamental cause of heart failure, a progressive weakening of the heart that leaves the organ unable to pump blood through the body.

The findings, by researchers at the Ohio State University Dorothy M. Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute, show that specialized proteins called ryanodine receptors (RyRs) malfunction in the failing heart. The RyRs form channels that become leaky, leading to calcium

Researchers at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development have determined the sequence in which the malaria parasite disperses from the red blood cells it infects. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development is one of the Institutes comprising the National Institutes of Health. The study appears in the September 20 Current Biology.

“This discovery provides the groundwork for possible new approaches to treating malaria, ” said Duane Alexander,

University of Cincinnati (UC) scientists have identified a possible new target for treating obesity and diabetes.

The new target, a molecule called hVps34, is activated by amino acids (nutrients) entering the cell. This molecule triggers the activation of an enzyme, S6 Kinase 1 (S6K1), whose function UC researchers linked last year to obesity and insulin resistance.

“Insulin and amino acids both play a critical role in growth and development,” said lead author George

Antibiotic resistance has put humans in an escalating ’arms race’ with infectious bacteria, as scientists try to develop new antibiotics faster than the bacteria can evolve new resistance strategies. But now, researchers have a new strategy that may give them a leg up in the race—reproducing in the lab the natural evolution of the bacterial enzymes that confer resistance.

A team of scientists in Argentina and Mexico identified mutations that increased the efficiency of a bacter

Bacteria and humans use a number of tools to direct perhaps the most important function in cells — the accurate copying of DNA during cell division. New research published this week in Molecular Cell from the laboratory of Rockefeller University’s Michael O’Donnell, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, now shows that one of these proteins, the beta sliding clamp, serves as a toolbelt from which the correct proteins are retrieved to enable DNA replication in the face of DNA

Cornell University researchers have discovered the 3-D crystal structure of a protein, human CD38, which may lead to important discoveries about how cells release calcium — a mineral used in almost every cellular process. The findings also may offer insights into mechanisms involved in certain diseases, ranging from leukemia to diabetes and HIV-AIDS.

Levels of the protein climb, for reasons unknown, when people fall ill, making human CD38 a marker for these diseases.

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Laboratory model missing one copy of Prox1 gene exhibits abnormal increase in fat accumulation around sites of lymph leakage from defective lymphatic vessels, according to St. Jude

Leaky lymphatic vessels are the leading cause of the adult onset obesity observed in a laboratory model developed by investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The findings suggest that the abnormal leakage of lymph fluid from the ruptured lymphatic vessels stimulates the accumulat