Work should boost studies of hair-cell regeneration

Researchers have discovered that deletion of a specific gene permits the proliferation of new hair cells in the cochlea of the inner ear — a finding that offers promise for treatment of age-related hearing loss. This type of hearing loss is caused by aging, disease, certain drugs, and the cacophony of modern life. It is the most common cause of hearing loss in older people.

The research team, which included Howard Hugh

Nervous system may regulate aging processes

A class of anti-seizure medications slows the rate of aging in roundworms, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. When exposed to drugs used to treat epilepsy in humans, worms lived longer and retained youthful functions longer than normal. Because the drugs affect nerve signals, the researchers’ observations suggest that the nervous system influences aging processes. The findings are rep

SLU scientist spearheaded multi-center effort

Following a long-term collaborative effort, scientists have deciphered the genomes of two strains of a fungus that can lead to brain swelling and death in those with compromised immune systems. Results were published at 2 p.m. Jan. 13 in the online “express” version of the journal Science: http://www.sciencemag.org/sciencexpress/recent.shtml

The fungus, which causes severe inflammation of the brain, is called Cryptococcus

A scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) has published the results of an EPA-funded clam embryo study that supports her hypothesis that, when combined, the pollutants bromoform, chloroform, and tetrachloroethylene—a chemical cocktail known as BCE—can act synergistically to alter a key regulator in nerve cell development. While scientists have previously studied the effects of these pollutants individually, this is the first time anyone has demonstrated that BCE’s components can w

Finding how the fowl-borne bacteria Campylobacter jejuni makes at least a million Americans miserable for a week each year is on the plates of two Medical College of Georgia microbiologists.

Raw and undercooked poultry and meat, raw milk and untreated water are sources for Campylobacter, the most common bacterial cause of diarrhea in the United States, according the U.S. Public Health Service.

But finding how these bacteria that happily co-exist with chickens and turkeys

Researchers at Brown Medical School and Rhode Island Hospital have shed new light on the activation of a protein key to the development of cancers, particularly breast and prostate cancer, the most commonly diagnosed cancers in the United States.

The team of cell biologists has discovered a new chemical modification that activates STAT3. This so-called signaling protein is important for embryonic growth and development, helping cells grow, duplicate and migrate. In adulthood, S

Professor Ricardo Azevedo’s research on the simplicity of cell lineages explained in Nature magazine

Shedding light upon evolution, a University of Houston professor studying cell lineages now finds surprising simplicity in the logic of animal development. Ricardo Azevedo, an assistant professor in the department of biology and biochemistry, specializes in how evolution changes the way animals develop. His recent findings using computational biology to reveal the surprisi

Mutations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) play an important role in the development of prostate cancer, according to research by scientists at Emory University School of Medicine and the University of California, Irvine. The findings are published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Mitochondrial DNA, which is separate from nuclear DNA, is found in the hundreds of mitochondria located in the cytoplasm outside of each cell’s nucleus. The mitochondria o

The best method for preventing HIV patients from developing drug resistance is a careful, dedicated adherence to their prescribed drug regimen, according to a long-term, large-scale study presented today in New York City at the American Medical Association Media Briefing, HIV/AIDS, The Drug Resistance Epidemic. Other key predictors of resistance include measures of how much virus was present in a person’s bloodstream at the start of therapy and how much their immune status was compromised

USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center oncologists are testing the effectiveness of a new drug against pancreatic cancer that targets the cancer from two directions.

In their National Cancer Institute-sponsored phase II clinical trial, researchers are evaluating how well BAY 43-9006 works alone and paired with gemcitabine, today’s standard chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer. Heinz-Josef Lenz, M.D., associate professor of medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, is p

The bacterium that causes the severe disease known as rabbit fever, Fancisella tularensis, is a potential biological weapon of devastating force. Now scientists at Umeå, in collaboration with several international associates, have mapped the entire genome of the bacterium.

Researchers at the Swedish Defense Research Agency FOI NBC Defense and Umeå University are part of an international consortium that is now publishing its results in the prestigious journal Nature Genetics. The

By studying mitochondrial DNA, which is passed from mother to child, researchers have found that most of the actual European inhabitants seem to have come from re-expansion of hunter-gatherers populations, which have migrated from Iberia, Europe after the end of the last Ice Age reports an article in the January issue of Genome Research.

In the study of human evolution through history and pre-history there are now two indispensable sets of genes to follow: Y-chromosome and mitoch

Gene transfer technique immunizes mice within 12 hours

Using gene transfer technology, investigators were able to immunize mice against anthrax in just 12 hours, according to new research featured in the February 2005 issue of Molecular Therapy, the peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Society of Gene Therapy (ASGT).

In any bioterror attack, vaccines that provide a rapid, effective defense against the pathogen will be key to saving lives. Research underway at

Little is known about the specific role of histones – the protein ’spool’ around which the famous DNA double helix is folded.
Now, researchers at the University of Virginia Health System have unraveled one mystery about what histones accomplish in the complex chemical cascade that determines the function of a cell in the body. Their findings are published in the Jan. 12, 2005 online edition of the journal Nature.

Scientists at U.Va’s Department of Biochemistry and Molecular

Steady five-year prevalence points to need for more rigorous evaluation

In a comparison of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use by adults in 1997 and 2002, researchers from Harvard Medical School found more than one in three U.S. adults (36.5 and 35.0 percent, respectively) used at least one form of CAM.

The continued widespread use of individual and multiple CAM therapies underscores the need to rigorously evaluate the safety, efficacy, and cost-effectivenes

A Mount Sinai School of Medicine led study is the first to suggest that Alzheimer’s disease may be slowed and possibly prevented through dietary changes

Researchers found that a low carbohydrate diet that reduced total caloric intake by 30% prevented the development of a fundamental feature of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in mice genetically engineered to develop the disease. The diet eliminated amyloid plaque development, which is the underlying pathology in AD. The study, p