In search of vegetable preparations for nervous system diseases prophylaxis and treatment Russian researchers have turned to green tea. Specialists of the Kuban State University, the Kuban Research-and-Production Laboratory of Physiologically Active Substances and the Institute of Brain (Russian Academy of Medical Sciences) have discovered that ethanolic extract of green tea stimulates spinal cord neurons’ regeneration.

Spinal ganglia were cultivated in nutrient medium. Dry extract

The University of Manchester has been awarded £6m to open a new biocentre which will revolutionise the way future medicines are produced – making them safer and more effective.

The Manchester Centre for Integrative Systems Biology (MCISB) will pioneer an entirely new approach to biology which will not only help pharmaceutical companies to develop better drugs, but potentially reduce the time it takes to develop them.

The centre will pioneer the development of new technologi

What makes a man behave like a man and a woman a woman? The answer may be partly in your genes. Researchers at the University of Virginia Health System have discovered a new twist on the role that estrogens play in the development of behavioral differences between males and females.

In laboratory tests on mice, the researchers found evidence that an estrogen receptor in the hypothalamus called ERb regulates defeminization, a process by which males lose the ability to display femal

A group of plants that uses metal to defend against infection may do so because the normal defense mechanism used by most other plants is blocked.

Purdue University researchers found that this group of plants produces, but does not respond to, the molecule that triggers the infection response used by nearly all other plants. The molecule does, however, allow this group of plants, called metal hyperaccumulators, to store high levels of metal in their tissues, rendering them pat

Researchers in Sweden have discovered that growth hormone (GH) treatment may result in the reduction of multiple metabolic disorders associated with abdominal obesity in postmenopausal women. Published in today in the March issue of The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, these findings demonstrate the important role growth hormone treatment may play in reducing serious metabolic conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease.

Typically, GH is known for its importa

Data may help develop strategies for mining natural gas locked up in seafloor sediments

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have recreated the high-pressure, low-temperature conditions of the seafloor in a tabletop apparatus for the study of methane-hydrates, an abundant but currently out-of-reach source of natural gas trapped within sediments below the ocean floor. Michael Eaton, a Stony Brook University graduate student working for Brook

Ask Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering Camilla Kao to describe a bacterium, and she’ll compare it to a factory capable of producing antibiotics, immunosuppressants and anti-cancer drugs that no chemist can synthesize. Bacteria normally produce antibiotics to inhibit other bacterial strains competing for resources. Pharmaceutical companies exploit this property to manufacture drugs, but the process of cultivating bacteria is slow and costly. By hijacking molecular synthesis with the

If you have ever covered a flashlight with your hand and seen the red light that still comes through, then you have seen light in the therapeutic window – that magic wavelength that is not absorbed or reflected away by tissue. Scientists believe that they can use light at that wavelength to signal manmade molecules to release drugs at disease sites in the body.

Such possibilities will be discussed in a poster and a talk by Virginia Tech researchers presenting at the 229th Americ

As tattoos have grown in popularity, so have complaints of adverse side effects associated with both their application and removal. A new study, done by chemistry students at Northern Arizona University, looked at the chemical composition of a variety of tattoo inks to better understand their potential health risks.

The findings, presented today at the 229th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society, suggest that closer regulat

Dusting for fingerprints can sometimes alter the prints, erasing valuable forensic clues. Now, chemists say they have developed a new fingerprint visualization technique using X-rays that leaves prints intact and, in addition, reveals chemical markers that could give investigators new clues for tracking criminals and missing persons. Their technique was described today at the 229th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

The

Scientists at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have used RNA interference in transgenic mice to silence a mutated gene that causes inherited cases of amytrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), substantially delaying both the onset and the progression rate of the fatal motor neuron disease. Their results will be published in the April issue of Nature Medicine, and in the journal’s advanced online publication March 13.

In addition to silencing the

A task-related spasmodic contraction of the muscles of the mouth and jaw, causing involuntary movements of the mouth and lips (oromandibular dystonia), manifesting only during speech as grimacing and sound distortion, has been diagnosed by a research team in Copenhagen, Denmark, and termed “Speaker’s Cramp”.

Symptoms were reduced when the affected muscles were treated with Botox® injections.

Patients rated their speech difficulties on visual analogue scales, and video

The genetic cause of the devastating skin disease Harlequin Ichthyosis has been discovered by a team at Barts and the London, Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and Dentistry.

In a paper to be published online in April in the American Journal of Human Genetics, Professor David Kelsell, of Queen Mary’s Centre for Cutaneous Research, outlines the recent breakthrough. Harlequin Ichthyosis (HI) is a rare, life threatening condition, where babies are born covered in a thick ‘coat of armo

Mice who keep their brains and bodies busy in an “enriched” environment of chew toys, running wheels, and tunnels have lower levels of the peptides and brain plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease compared to mice raised in more sparse conditions, according to a new study in the 11 March issue of the journal Cell.

Levels of b-amyloid peptides, which clump together to form the brain “tangles” or plaques that are toxic to nerve cells in Alzheimer’s disease, were sig

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center and Vanderbilt University Medical Center have pinpointed the first major gene that determines an individual’s risk for developing age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The chronic, progressive disease — which affects as many as 15 million people in the United States — is the leading cause of visual impairment and legal blindness in the elderly.

A common variant of the gene, called complement factor H (CFH), explains approxima

The chromosomes of mammals, including humans, contain regions that are particularly prone to breaking under conditions of stress and in cancer. Now, new research by geneticists at Duke University Medical Center finds that yeast cells also contain such weak links in DNA and begins to reveal the molecular characteristics of these links that might help to explain them.

The findings, published in the March 11, 2005, issue of Cell, suggest that yeast may offer a useful model system f