The protein Mnd2 inhibits premature separation of chromosomes during the formation of gametes. The now published discovery of this regulatory function may help to understand the origin of some common congenital chromosome defects. The project of a team of the University of Vienna funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) contributes to the Campus Vienna Biocenter maintaining a top-level position in the field of cell division research.

During the division of somatic cells (mitosi

In a paper in this month’s freely-available online global health journal PLoS Medicine, Roland Haubner and colleagues describe how a compound they have developed can be used together with highly sensitive positron emission tomography (PET) scanning to measure the amount of new blood vessel growth in some tumors.

New blood vessel growth – angiogenesis – is important for the growth of tumors; several drugs target angiogenesis specifically. The compound previously developed by

Hemoglobins, key components of our blood, are ancient proteins with well-known roles in oxygen transport and respiration in animals. Hemoglobins are also present in plants and bacteria, but until now the physiological role of plant hemoglobins has been unclear. A group of researchers reveal this week that one such mysterious plant hemoglobin serves to assist in the fixation of nitrogen in the root nodules of legumes through a process that is conceptually not unlike that undertaken by mammalian

Like many other marine creatures, Aplysia, a common sea slug, enlists chemical defenses against its predators, but the mechanisms by which such chemical attacks actually work against their intended targets are not well understood by researchers. New work has now shown that such chemical defenses can involve modes of trickery that had not previously been appreciated as components of chemical defense.

When attacked by predatory spiny lobsters, sea slugs (also known as sea hares) rel

Findings by USC researchers provide new potential options for prevention, therapy

Mutated BRCA1 genes cause ovarian cancer indirectly, by interfering with the biochemical signals one ovarian cell sends to another, according to a team of researchers led by scientists at the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. Their work is being published in the March 29 issue of the journal Current Biology.

“Befor

Use of “functional imaging” to track plant nutrients has many potential applications

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have applied some of the same techniques used in medical imaging to track the distribution of nutrients in poplar trees in response to a simulated insect attack. The research provides new insights on a long-debated theory about how plants respond to environmental stress, and shows that radiotracer imaging can be a big help

Gene therapy methods that specifically target muscle may reverse the symptoms of a rare form of muscular dystrophy, according to new research in mice conducted by medical geneticists at Duke University Medical Center. Infants born with the inherited muscular disorder called Pompe disease usually die before they reach the age of two. The researchers also said their approach of targeting corrective genes to muscles may have application in treating other muscular dystrophies.

Patien

Researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine are several steps closer to the day when a profoundly deaf patient’s own bone marrow cells could be used to let him or her hear the world.

The IU group, led by Eri Hashino, Ph.D., was able to transform, in the laboratory, stem cells taken from adult bone marrow into cells with many of the characteristics of sensory nerve cells — neurons — found in the ear. The results suggest that these adult stem cells could be used t

Mice lacking a key protein involved in cholesterol regulation have low-density lipoprotein, or “bad” cholesterol, levels more than 50 percent lower than normal mice, and researchers suggest that inhibiting the same protein in humans could lead to new cholesterol-lowering drugs.

In a study to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and available online this week, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center deleted the Pcsk9 gene in mice. The gene, pr

Leon Goldstein, a professor of medical science at Brown Medical School, set out to plumb a molecular mystery.

Along with Mark Musch, a longtime University of Chicago collaborator, Goldstein conducted an experiment with the red blood cells of skates to understand how these skinny, graceful fish can swim from salt water to fresh water. For humans, such a drastic environmental change would prompt an equally drastic physiological change: Our cells would take in too much water, d

A new use of the drug Herceptin appears to offer a much more powerful treatment advantage than expected for patients with HER-2-positive breast cancer, say researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

When combined with chemotherapy and used before surgery in early stage breast cancer the drug proved so beneficial – eliminating 42 percent more tumors than chemotherapy alone – that the clinical trial testing of this new treatment plan was halted early, th

Technology could lower costs for high-throughput genetic scans

A “color-blind” method of fluorescence detection developed by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and Rice University could open new doors that would take DNA sequencing to the patient’s bedside, the doctor’s office and even the scene of a crime or a battlefield.

“We could eventually do direct detection of a DNA sequence from native DNA” without manipulation now performed in the laboratory

Diffusion MRI shows 3 weeks into treatment if tumor is responding

A special type of MRI scan that measures the flow of water molecules through the brain can help doctors determine early in the course of brain cancer regimen if a patient’s tumor will shrink, a new study shows.

Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center developed the assessment, which they call a functional diffusion map. They used a magnetic resonance imaging scan that track

A pair of leading scientists who study songbirds as models for understanding the human brain and how humans acquire language say it’s time for the burgeoning field to begin singing a different tune and study a wider variety of species.

Michael Beecher and Eliot Brenowitz, University of Washington professors of psychology and biology, say that while a great deal of knowledge has been gleaned by studying songbirds over the past three decades, a narrow focus on just a few spe

A new reference standard from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) may help genetics labs develop improved methods of searching for a mutant needle in a DNA haystack.

A single DNA molecule carrying part of a person’s genetic code is a chain of basic chemical units called nucleotides. The number of nucleotides can range from about 16,500 in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) to several million in nuclear DNA. A key mutation in a DNA strand may involve only a singl

Scientists at the University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Medicine have discovered the cause of a deadly type of secondary stroke known as cerebral vasospasm.

A constriction of the blood vessels in the brain, cerebral vasospasm usually occurs three to 10 days following a massive brain bleed known as hemorrhagic stroke. Sixty percent of patients who survive the initial stroke develop vasospasm, and 40 percent of them die from it.

Vasospasm, says neurology department