Public health researchers in Minnesota recently identified 83 persons infected with subtypes of HIV-1 that are not common in the United States, according to a report published in the June 15 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online.

Viral subtype identification may be important because subtypes may differ in terms of the efficacy of potential vaccines, diagnostic testing for HIV infection, and monitoring of the health of HIV-infected patients. The r

A manmade protein with a tail of amino acids delivered to target cells can dramatically reduce blood vessel growth that obstructs vision or feeds a tumor, researchers have found.

This new approach to inhibiting blood vessel growth, or angiogenesis, delivers “intraceptors” that sequester VEGF, a “linchpin” protein needed to make blood vessels, says Dr. Balamurali K. Ambati, corneal specialist at the Medical College of Georgia and corresponding author on the study.

In a t

Just six minutes of intense exercise a week could be as effective as an hour of daily moderate activity suggests new findings from researchers at McMaster University.

“Short bouts of very intense exercise improved muscle health and performance comparable to several weeks of traditional endurance training,” says Martin Gibala, an associate professor in the department of kinesiology of McMaster.

The research, which is published in the June edition of the Journal of Applie

Some century-old chemistry could have a strong impact on important issues in biosensors and other nanotech devices, according to a Purdue University research group.

A team led by Alexander Wei has shown that amines, a large and important class of organic molecules, when mixed with carbon disulfide, can bond to gold more robustly than thiols, which are commonly used materials for giving new functions to metal surfaces. Gold surfaces are often used as baseplates of sensors and in nanom

Mix-and-shake procedure leads to instant glass microbubbles

Chemical engineers from Rice University have developed a fundamentally new approach – the most environmentally sensitive yet devised – for making tiny hollow spheres called microcapsules. Microcapsule research is one of the most active fields in applied nanotechnology, with dozens of companies either developing or using the tiny containers – usually smaller than living cells – to deliver everything from drugs and imaging ag

With the unusual opportunity that human leprosy infections provide for study of human immune responses, scientists have discovered how the body’s early warning system prompts a rapid immune response by two separate armies of defensive cells. The finding helps explain why, when threatened by microbes like the leprosy bug, this initial defense sometimes succeeds in limiting the damage, but in other cases yields to a dangerous, spreading infection.

Led by Stephan R. Krutzik of UCLA

Opening a window to understand the molecular basis of a hereditary ataxia, Dartmouth Medical School researchers have identified an enzyme activity that is inactivated in all reported mutant forms of a disease protein. The discovery may lead to therapies to treat the neurological disease. The study appears in the June 3, 2005 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) as Paper of the Week, an honor conferred on approximately 1% of JBC’s 6600 annual publications.

Dr. Ch

U-M researchers identify method that produces viable eggs when thawed

A new technique might allow women diagnosed with cancer the opportunity to have children when chemotherapy and radiation treatments rob them of their fertility, researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have found. By having her eggs frozen before she begins cancer treatments, a woman can preserve the hope of one day having a baby.

Freezing eggs is one thing; thawing them

Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center may have uncovered the reason why some people who are genetically predisposed to hormone-dependent cancers develop the disease as an adult, while others who are similarly susceptible don’t.

In a study to be published on-line in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) the week of May 30, 2005, they show, for the first time, that exposure to a pharmaceutical estrogen during fetal development c

Until now it has been impossible to accurately measure the levels of important chemicals in living brain cells in real time and at the level of a single cell. Scientists at the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Plant Biology and Stanford University are the first to overcome this obstacle by successfully applying genetic nanotechnology using molecular sensors to view changes in brain chemical levels. The sensors alter their 3-dimensional form upon binding with the chemical, which is then vis

The McGill University Health Center (MUHC) in Montreal is pleased to announce the first successful birth in Canada resulting from frozen eggs. A team led by Professor Seang Lin Tan, Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at McGill University and Director of the McGill Reproductive Centre at the MUHC in Montreal confirmed the birth of a healthy baby boy, weighing 3740grams on April 29. “We are the first in-vitro fertilization (IVF) Centre in Canada to achieve this success,” says Dr.

New research shows that exposure to harmful chemicals and drugs during critical developmental periods early in life may actually “reprogram” the way certain genes respond to the female hormone estrogen. This genetic reprogramming may determine whether people with a genetic predisposition for a disease actually develop the disease.
The new research shows that when rats with a genetic predisposition to uterine tumors also receive an early-life exposure to diethylstilbestrol (DES), a syntheti

Just as disturbance makes a landscape susceptible to invasion by alien plants, the construction of reservoirs could be contributing to the accelerating spread of exotic aquatic species.

Just as disturbance makes a landscape susceptible to invasion by alien plant species, the construction of reservoirs around the globe could be contributing to the accelerating spread of exotic aquatic species, according to a Forum article in the June 2005 issue of BioScience. John A. Havel of

Calcitonin, a hormone that lowers calcium levels in the blood and prevents bone loss, has only been available in an injectable and nasally-administered format to date. New research by Conway investigator, Dr David Brayden promises to ultimately deliver an oral method of treating osteoporosis patients with this hormone, which would have many advantages over current treatment regimes.

All drugs taken orally face the same problem; they must get from the gut into the bloodstream and avoid b

Consumers of organic food should be more inquisitive about its quality, if they want to make sure they get the ‘real thing’, say European experts.

A team of researchers leading a pan-European organic food project also recommends that shoppers tell retailers if they are satisfied or not with the products and the information provided on their labels.

The advice is among a series of recommendations given in three new booklets aimed at informing consumers about organic food

Biomedical engineers at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering have created a new three-dimensional ultrasound cardiac imaging probe. Inserted inside the esophagus, the probe creates a picture of the whole heart in the time it takes for current ultrasound technology to image a single heart cross section.

The new probe has considerable potential not only for evaluating the condition of the heart, but also for use in guiding therapeutic treatment devices, the researcher