A team of scientists led by Peer Bork, Ph.D., Senior Bioinformatics Scientist at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, report today in the journal Genome Research that they have identified a new primate-specific gene family that spans about 10% of human chromosome 2. Comprised of eight family members, the RGP gene cluster may help to explain what sets apart humans and other primates from the rest of the animal kingdom.

Human chromosome 2 has always intrigued primate biologist

A decision has now been taken on the grant that the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme is to provide for EICOSANOX, a major research project coordinated by Karolinska Institutet’s Professor Jesper Z. Haeggström. The project, which ranked highest in its category, is an Integrated Project (IP) and is to be allocated research funding of 10.7 million euro over the course of five years. A total of 15 research groups from six European nations will be merged into a very large multi-disciplinary consortiu

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have shown how the transplantation of stem cells improves recovery from spinal injury. However, a painful condition can also develop, which can be prevented if the stem cells are supplemented with a certain gene that controls their maturing process. The results are important for planning of stem cell therapy trials on patients with spinal injury.

Spinal injury confines some 150 Swedes a year to wheelchairs. The damage cause the loss of movement

Vets at the University of Liverpool are looking for Dobermann volunteers to participate in a research project to combat canine heart disease.

The dogs will take part in a screening programme to detect early signs of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), a heart condition that is particularly common in the breed.

The disease, which can affect dogs, cats and humans, causes the heart to become enlarged and weakened. Over a number of years the contraction of the heart begins to dec

A novel technology that can test cells in minutes for responses to any stimulus, including antibiotics, pathogens, toxins, radiation or chemotherapy, has been developed by scientists at the University at Buffalo.

The paper describing the sensor will appear in the Feb. 15 issue of Analytical Chemistry, and currently is available as an “ASAP” article on the American Chemical Society Web site http://www.chemistry.org.

Susan Z. Hua, Ph.D., UB assistant professor of mech

Take a moment and look at a picture near you. What did you see? How long did it take you to understand what was in the image, meaning how long did it take you to realize the green blob was a tree? Or that the orange circle was a piece of fruit? Most likely you assume that it took you no time at all, you just knew.

Psychologists who study how we perceive images used to think that, before the process of object recognition and categorization could begin, the brain must first separate

A large, multisite trial designed to examine the safety and preliminary effectiveness of two candidate topical microbicides to prevent HIV infection has opened to volunteer enrollment. The trial, sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, represents a partnership among various research institutions in Africa and the United States. Although no licensed microbicides are available to the public currently, scientists h

The existence of growth spurts and growing pains in children may be perpetually evident to parents, but their cause has lacked scientific explanation. A new study by Emory University anthropologist Michelle Lampl, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison now sheds some light on this childhood phenomena.

In a five-year study using lambs, the research team found that leg growth occurred primarily when the animals were at rest. While the research does not pro

Dutch researcher Corine Visser investigated a new way of transporting medicines into the brain. Her approach made use of an iron transport system located on the blood-brain barrier. The smaller the medicine, the more easily it penetrates the brain.

A special barrier between the blood and the brain, the so-called blood-brain barrier (BBB), protects the brain from toxic substances. It only lets through important nutrients for the brain such as iron, glucose and oxygen. Visser allowe

Patienten mit schweren Herzerkrankungen, die eine Transplantation benötigen würden, müssen häufig zu lange auf das lebensrettende Organ warten. Neue mechanische Unterstützungssysteme für den Herz-Kreislauf können nicht nur dabei helfen, die Wartezeit zu überbrücken, sondern auch die Transplantation überhaupt ersetzen, berichtete Prof. Dr. Christof Schmid bei der Jahreskonferenz der Herzchirurgen in Hamburg.

Geschätzte 1.200 bis 1.500 Menschen warten in Deutschland jährlich auf e

A meticulous diary kept by a mother of twins has revealed indicators of autistic behaviour in children as young as six months of age. The findings are published today in Neurocase.

Mel Rutherford, assistant professor of psychology at McMaster University, says the diary provides a rare and unprecedented opportunity to observe the early development of autism. She says the mother of fraternal twins recorded her observations almost daily for about five years, beginning before the twi

A behavioral neuroscientist at the University at Buffalo holds that the ingestion of afterbirth by a mother, a feature of pregnancy in nearly all non-human mammals, not only relieves postpartum pain, but optimizes the onset of maternal behavior by mediating the activity of specific opioid activity circuits in the brain.

Mark Kristal, Ph.D., professor of psychology at UB and director the graduate program in behavioral neuroscience, has received a two-year $200,000 grant from the Nat

Women with a history of caesarean section deliveries do not have a higher risk of a subsequent stillbirth, according to researchers at Yale School of Medicine and Columbia University.

Yale Obstetrics and Gynecology scientist Mert Ozan Bahtiyar, M.D., presented the findings today at the annual meeting of the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine, held February 7-12 in Reno, Nevada. “Caesarean sections have been associated with some pregnancy complications, but when a physician consul

Food of animal origin, contaminated with E.coli, can lead to urinary tract infections in women, according to a team of bacteriologists.

“We found out that UTIs may be caused by ingesting food contaminated with E. coli,” said Dr. Chobi DebRoy, director of Penn State’s Gastroenteric Disease Center. Previously, this link was not established, she noted.

Senior author, Dr. Lee W. Riley, University of California-Berkeley, found that E.coli strains isolated from patie

“This is an exciting early step in developing a sustainable system for producing electricity from hydrogen” said Professor Chris Pickett (Associate Head of the Biological Chemistry Department at JIC). ”In Nature iron–sulphur enzymes catalyse a range of important chemical reactions that industry can only do by using precious metal catalysts and/or high temperatures and pressures. Based on Nature’s blueprint we are a step closer to building an iron-sulfur catalyst for reactions fundamental to a sust

B cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is an incurable disease in which cells in the bone marrow grow and survive to the point where they become abnormal and malignant (leukemic). The progression of the disease is slow and there has been a lack of information regarding the rate of production of CLL cells, and the time-course of their death.

For years, doctors and scientists believed that CLL was a static disease of long-lived lymphocytes — that the leukemia cells were both immo