Could be first step for treatment of heart damage caused by MD

A common chemical used in the manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries can repair damage to cardiac muscle cell membranes and prevent heart failure in mice with the genetic mutation that causes Duchenne muscular dystrophy, according to scientists at the University of Michigan Medical School.

The mutation in the dystrophin gene causes the progressive deterioration of skeletal muscles seen in people with MD

By studying five generations of a Dallas family, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have discovered that a mutation in a key gene causes aortic valve disease, a common heart birth defect as well as a major contributor to adult heart disease. In the study, available in the online edition of the journal Nature, researchers scanned the DNA of 11 members of a family that was affected with aortic heart disease. The patients ranged from children with severe narrowing of the aortic valve to 5

A 3-day international conference on Renewable Resources and Biorefineries, to be held in Ghent, Belgium on 19-21 September 2005. This conference is the prime forum for industrial biotechnology, renewable resources and biorefineries in Europe.

The conference program is organized in 10 parallel sessions, with over 50 high quality presentations by international experts, covering both technical and policy aspects of the bio-based economy. The call for posters is still open and poster abstract

University of Queensland researchers have identified a protein that is crucially involved in how our memories are stored and processed, paving the way for new strategies to treat conditions certain mental disorders.

Dr Louise Faber and Professor Pankaj Sah, from UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute (QBI), have been studying how cells in the brain form memories.

“What we were looking at in particular is how the memory of emotions, such as fear and anxiety, are laid dow

Men receiving radiation therapy to combat early-stage prostate cancer are still able to achieve an erection and face a low rate of incontinence one year following treatment, according to a new study published in the July 15, 2005 issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, the official journal of ASTRO, the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology.

Researchers enrolled 98 men from 24 institutions and set out to gauge the health-related

Brisbane researchers are hoping to prove the dangers of shaking babies by creating a model that will show how quickly babies can be injured.

The University of Queensland research team of civil engineers and a child health expert is working on a numerical model that will tell when a baby’s brain could be damaged by violent shaking.

Shaking can cause Shaken Baby Syndrome which swells a baby’s brain and triggers internal bleeding.

Shaken Baby Syndrome caus

Cornell University scientists have developed a rapid, less costly and sensitive new technique for detecting group A streptococcus, the bacteria that cause scarlet fever. Details will be announced today at the Institute of Food Technologists Annual Meeting and Food Expo in New Orleans.

The presentation by Sam Nugen, a graduate student in Cornell’s food science department, will focus on detecting the food-borne bacteria Streptococcus pyogenes (S. pyogenes), but the technique

A portable, versatile and low-cost molecular detection tool being developed by a team of European researchers promises to revolutionise the diagnosis of diseases such as cancer and open up new applications in sectors as diverse as environmental protection, chemical analysis and food safety.

Working in the field of micro- and nano-technologies, the IST programme-funded BioFinger project is due to begin testing its state-of-the-art system over the summer amid expectations for a c

An international group of researchers working in more than 20 laboratories around the globe have determined genetic blueprints for the parasites that cause three deadly insect-borne diseases: African sleeping sickness, leishmaniasis and Chagas disease. The research, funded in part by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, is published in this week’s issue of Science. Knowing the full genetic make-up of the three parasites–

Dr. Stephen Burden and colleagues demonstrate that the DNA-binding protein, Runx1 (AML1), directs the expression of 29 genes involved in the prevention of skeletal muscle wasting. Using mice deficient in runx1 specifically in skeletal muscle cells, the researchers determined that Runx1 activation is necessary to sustain muscle by limiting the autophagy of denervated myofibers.

Dr. Burden believes that their findings “raise the intriguing possibility that congenital myopathies, which do

Dr. Robert Husson and colleagues have found two serine threonine kinase genes (pknA and pknB) that regulate cell shape, and possibly cell division, in the bacterial pathogen, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The researchers identified three in vivo substrates of PknA and PknB, one of which (Wag31) is an important factor in controlling bacterial cell division and cell shape.

Overexpression of either Pkn protein results in a cell shape defect. Dr. Husson is confident that “these findings desc

Delving deep into the molecular subtleties of a strain of mice engineered to age rapidly, scientists have found that an accumulation of genetic mutations prompts a cascade of programmed cell death that seems to underpin the aging process.

Writing today (July 15, 2005) in the journal Science, a team of scientists led by University of Wisconsin-Madison geneticist Tomas A. Prolla describes a series of experiments in mutant and normal mice that peel away some of the root secrets of m

Panel publishes recommendations to minimize risk of altering animals’ ’moral status’

An expert panel of stem cell scientists, primatologists, philosophers and lawyers has concluded that experiments implanting, or grafting, human stem cells into non-human primate brains could unintentionally shift the moral ground between humans and other primates. Writing in the July 15 issue of Science, the panel reports its recommendations for minimizing the chances that experim

Nearly 20 million people worldwide are infected with a parasitic ailment called Chagas Disease, and nearly a third of those will develop severe heart trouble. Although options for treatment are poor and there are no vaccines, a new study by scientists at the University of Georgia of proteins in the parasite that causes the disease may offer hope.

The first-ever global survey of protein expression in the four lifecycle stages of Trypanosoma cruzi, the parasite that causes the dise

A team of scientists led by Cornell University’s Dr. John Schimenti reports today that an extraordinary number of genes are required for prenatal mammalian development. The researchers estimate that up to 19% of all genes are vital for embryogenesis in mice. Their study, which is one of the largest functional genomics projects described to date, is published in today’s online edition of the journal Genome Research.

In addition to the important implications for understanding mammal

Biophysicists have developed a method for studying, in real time, a nanoscale “docking and undocking” interaction between small pieces of ribonucleic acid (RNA), a technique that may be broadly useful in studying structural changes in RNA that affect its function. The research at JILA, a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and University of Colorado at Boulder, may have applications in the design of effective new drugs based on small RNA strands.