Amyloid fibers are best known as the plaque that gunks up neurons in people with neurodegenerative illnesses such as Alzheimer’s and Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease–the human analog of mad cow disease. But even though amyloids are common and implicated in a host of conditions, researchers haven’t been able to identify their precise molecular structures. Conventional techniques used to image proteins, such as X-ray crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, don’t work wit

Ribonucleic acid, or RNA, has long been thought to be important only to translate a gene’s DNA into the proteins that are cells’ workhorses. But new evidence shows that tiny bits of RNA not used to make proteins actually play central roles in normal biology and in the development of cancers.

“Scientists have known for a few years that production of these tiny RNAs, known as microRNAs, is only supposed to happen at certain times and in certain tissues, but no one had been able to

A prototype drug created by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago shows promise in slowing replication of the virus responsible for severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. Currently, there are no effective antiviral agents or vaccines for SARS, which killed almost 800 people in an epidemic in 2002-2003.

On the basis of their success, the researchers have received an $8 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to develop prot

Strategic mix to include gibbon, bats, sloth and mosquitoes

The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announced today that the Large-Scale Sequencing Research Network will target 13 more organisms as part of its ongoing effort to produce genomic data that will expand biological knowledge and improve human health.

The National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research (NACHGR), which is a federally chartered

A senior scientist at Mount Sinai Hospital has developed Canada’s first two human embryonic stem cell lines, giving researchers across the country new potential and hope for eventually discovering treatments and cures for many chronic and fatal diseases.
“My hope – and the hope of my world-class laboratory team – is that our step of developing the first Canadian embryonic stem cell lines will ultimately bring Canada and the world closer to treating or curing diseases such as Multiple

An international team of chemists and molecular biologists has discovered a fundamental molecular mechanism that seems to play an important role in Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, mad cow disease and two-dozen other degenerative and fatal diseases. The discovery is reported June 9 in the journal Nature, where it is featured on the cover.

Amyloid fibrils, rope-like structures formed by linked protein molecules, are the common feature of these diseases and ma

To ignite a life-threatening infection in the body, a virus such as HIV invades body cells by first merging, or fusing, with the cell’s outer membrane. Once inside the cell, the invading microbe’s genetic material takes over, turning the ’host’ cell into a factory to produce more copies of the virus, which then spill out to invade other cells in the body.

Scientists had assumed that once a virus begins fusing with a cell’s membrane, infection of the host

According to the World Health organisation, the definition of autism is based on a specific pattern of behaviour characteristics, as neither its aetiology nor pathology is defined. This is why a search for autism markers is proposed at three levels: morphological, cytogenetic and molecular.

In the 80s, a research group at the Leioa campus of the University of the Basque Country worked on dermatoglyphs, an analysis technique applied to autistic children. Dermatoglyphs, or handprin

Testing tumour cells to predict whether radiation or surgery would be the best form of treatment.

When treating people with cancer, time can be of the essence, and work is going ahead at the University of Leicester to learn how to predict which tumours can be treated more effectively by radiation therapy and which by surgery; this could save several weeks of inappropriate treatment and hopefully improve treatment outcome.

When you treat bladder cancers with radiation the

After studies appeared showing that treating menopausal complaints with estrogen entailed not wholly positive health effects, the prescription of such preparations declined. A dissertation from the Sahlgrenska Academy now shows that the drop was far from the same among female gynecologists and partners of male gynecologists. They still use estrogen to a greater extent.

During the 1990s there was a strong increase in the use of estrogen to alleviate symptoms of menopause in Swede

Soy appears to lower cholesterol and blood sugar levels, aid weight loss (also notes on childhood obesity)

The labels in the snack food aisle promise low-fat, no-fat, low-cal and low-carb tasty treats. But what really makes a food healthy? And should we believe the commercial hype about soy products and our health? Renowned nutrition and weight-loss expert, and University of Kentucky physician and researcher, Dr. James Anderson addresses these and other questions in two artic

More effective and safer medicines will be possible if we understand how the body detoxifies itself. The cytochrome P450 enzymes are the molecular machines responsible for the disposal by the human body of 80% of all medicines. These enzymes are also needed for the body to remove poisons and to manufacture many important molecules such as the sex hormones progesterone and testosterone. Understanding how the cytochromes P450 function is of great importance for human health.

New ins

Confirming findings in a previous study, Yale researchers observed an altered availability of the dopamine transporter in healthy persons with a genetic variation linked to substance abuse and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
“Healthy people who carry a particular variant of the dopamine transporter gene, the nine repeat allele, have significantly higher levels of dopamine transporter in the brain,” said the lead author, Christopher van Dyck, M.D., associate professor of psych

Researchers at the University of Barcelona, Spain, show for the first time that bacteria, in addition to yeast, are involved in the secondary fermentation of the sparkling wine known as Cava. They report their findings today at the 105th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.

“Bacteria found in Cava samples could have a distinctive impact upon sparkling wine quality in terms of aroma, flavor, bubble size and bubble persistence, especially for premium quality wi

Researchers have produced the strongest evidence yet that mitochondria — the organelles that generate energy to power the cell — also monitor oxygen concentration in the cell. If oxygen slips below a critical threshold, the mitochondrial “sensor” triggers protective responses to promote survival.

Understanding how the cell senses and protects itself against hypoxia (low oxygen) has both important basic and clinical implications for biology and medicine, said one of the study’s

USDA Forest Service (FS) research suggests that a decline in the abundance of freshwater mussels about 1000 years ago may have been caused by the large-scale cultivation of maize by Native Americans.

In the April 2005 issue of Conservation Biology, Wendell Haag and Mel Warren, researchers with the FS Southern Research Station (SRS) unit in Oxford , MS, report results from a study of archaeological data from 27 prehistoric sites in the southeastern United States.

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