Reactive oxygen species (ROS), or ’oxygen radicals’, have been identified as major contributors to signs of premature aging, increased cancer prevalence linked to inflammation-associated syndromes and a variety of human diseases. Now scientists at the University of California, San Diego Branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR) have identified a key network of DNA repair and cell cycle control genes in yeast that prevents the deleterious effects of ROS.

The human brain is like a general in a bunker. Floating in its bubble of cerebrospinal fluid, it has no direct window to the outside world, so the only way for the brain to observe, comprehend, and order the body into action is to rely on information it receives. This information comes to it through a sophisticated system of sensory neurons that connect the brain to organs like the eye, ear, nose, and mouth.

In recent years, biologists and neuroscientists have been trying

Discovery gives clinicians new targets for making existing therapies more effective and developing drugs to inhibit the growth of cancers

A team of researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton and the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute in Toronto have discovered how a key enzyme involved in repairing DNA is put together and how it works–a development that opens up new therapies for making cancer cells more vulnerable to attack. The team has crystallized–or characterized

An international team of medical scientists has made an important advance in our understanding of the second most fatal form of cancer in the industrialized world. Professor Jeremy R. Jass, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Gastrointestinal Pathology at McGill University in Montreal, and colleagues in Australia and Japan have shown that in some cases colorectal cancer can be inherited.

The new syndrome is characterized by distinctive clinical, pathological and molecular featur

Mayo Clinic researchers have discovered a genetic marker that may pave the way for a fast, inexpensive blood test to predict one type of deadly stroke that strikes 30,000 people in the United States annually.

The article and an editorial appear in the March edition of the Journal of Neurosurgery, http://www.thejns-net.org/jns/issues/toc_pre.html. The Mayo Clinic researchers report that people with key variations in a gene that affects the ability of blood vessels to relax are 10 ti

Cholesterol, often stigmatized for its role in heart disease, has long been known to be essential for the health of the fat-laden membranes that surround individual cells. New findings by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center highlight a novel role for cholesterol inside the cell itself – anchoring a signaling pathway linked to cell division and cancer.

These findings appear in the March 4 issue of Science and are available online. “Cell signals have to be tightly control

A paper published in today’s issue of Science has challenged beliefs about the role of dopamine in the brain, which could lead to new treatments for Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia and drug addiction. The research suggests that dopamine has a far wider, less specialised role than previously hypothesised.

The paper, written by experts at the University of Sheffield and Macquarie University in Sydney, focused on the role of dopamine as a neurotransmitter. Researchers sought to det

A patient needs a small-diameter bypass graft to replace a diseased blood vessel because of the progression of diabetes or the result of smoking.

Due to these chronic health issues, the patient’s veins can no longer be used for such a procedure. While large artificial arteries (10 to 15 millimeters in diameter) have been in use for about 50 years for replacing large blood vessels, development of a small-diameter artificial artery (less than 5 millimeters) has been unsuccessful du

When pop princess Britney Spears needs a pick-me-up, she turns to a popular energy drink for a quick boost. Red Bull mixed with apple juice, she has said, “really pumps me up.”

And that’s the idea. Highly caffeinated energy drinks – such as Red Bull, Go-Fast! and Monster – market themselves as sources of increased energy and concentration. Their websites feature high-flying motorcyclists and upside-down skateboarders as dynamic embodiments of all that concentrated energy.

A team of researchers in Switzerland has initiated and contributed to the development of substance that will vastly improve the early detection and treatment of bladder cancer. Patients screened using this new substance are more likely to be correctly diagnosed, and the low recurrence rates associated with its use will lead to improved patient outcomes. This substance, hexaminolevulinate, is the active substance in a new pharmaceutical product that has been developed by the Norwegian company Ph

The Microbiology Awareness Campaign gathered momentum yesterday at the House of Lords when scientists informed Peers and MPs that new and re-emerging infectious diseases could spell trouble if not tackled soon. The experts said that without targeted government funding for microbiological research, serious health and economic problems may lie ahead for the UK.

The event was hosted by Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior, who began by expressing his concern about the closures and cutbac

Despite the millions of dollars that have been invested into research to improve methods of treatments for various types of cancer, oncological diseases continue to have a high mortality rate, remaining one of the main causes of death globally. Traditional cancer treatment methods, such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and radiotherapy are effective in approximately only half of all patients.

A promising technology to more effectively treat certain cancers is Neutron Capture Ther

Many patients with liver diseases often encounter difficulties with therapy and ultimately require liver transplant to survive. Since many acute and chronic liver diseases are driven by immune-mediated mechanisms, there is a necessity to find new therapies that can inhibit these immune-based triggers and block liver damage. In a study appearing online on March 3 in advance of publication in the April 1 print edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Christian Trautwein, Christian Klein,

A computer-aided detection system (CAD) can effectively detect breast cancers a radiologist is more apt to initially miss, a new study shows.

Small lesions are very challenging for the radiologist to detect, said Rachel F. Brem, MD, director of breast imaging at George Washington University in Washington, DC, and lead author of the study. The study of 201 women found that CAD was “highly effective in detecting even the smallest lesions, with a sensitivity of 92% for lesions of 5 mm

More breast cancer patients with large palpable tumors are now undergoing chemotherapy before surgery in an effort to reduce the size of their tumor, and MRI is the best way to predict if the chemotherapy is working, preliminary results of a study show. If the chemotherapy is successful, then the woman may be able to undergo breast-conservation surgery rather than a mastectomy.

Currently, it is standard practice for the physician to do a breast examination to non-invasively asses

The first experimental evidence that birds can be deceived by camouflage in the same way that humans are deceived, is published today in Nature [3 March 2005].

The idea that bold contrasting colours help to break-up the body’s outline was rapidly adopted by many armies as long ago as the First World War. And in biology this idea of ‘disruptive colouration’ has long been used to explain how insects such as moths conceal themselves from predators, shaping the evolution of protectiv