Cord blood cells limit heart attack damage in animal study

Stem cells from umbilical cord blood effectively treated heart attacks in an animal study, report cardiologist Robert J. Henning, MD, and colleagues at the University of South Florida and James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital.

When injected into rats’ hearts soon after a heart attack, stem cells taken from human umbilical cord blood (HUCB) greatly reduced the size of heart damage and restored pumping func

Researchers have known for a decade that the p53 tumor suppressor gene is important for killing cells as they proliferate under low-oxygen conditions inside tumors. As tumors grow they outstrip their oxygen supply. If a cell has a normal p53 gene, the p53 protein will eliminate cancerous cells, keeping tumor growth at bay. Under conditions of stress to the cell – such as radiation or chemotherapy and hypoxia – p53 normally eliminates tumors.

Hypoxia, however, induces p53 to mu

The rice genome is larger, but we make the most of what we’ve got

In April 2003, scientists completed the massive Human Genome Project, recording for the first time in history the location and sequence of every gene in the human body. One result of the international project came as a bit of a shock. Scientists discovered that the body has only 30,000 genes, far fewer than the 50,000 to 140,000 they had expected to find.

Moreover, scientists learned that some less compl

Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have succeeded in discovering and isolating a new protein from the poplar tree with special structural and qualitative characteristics that could have consequences for development of future nanocapsules for drug delivery to cancer cells.

In addition to being obtained from plant tissue, the protein can now also be produced in large quantities as a recombinant protein in bacteria, making it highly available for medicinal or other ap

Subra Suresh has spent the last two decades studying the mechanical properties of engineered materials from the atomic to the structural scale. So, until recently, the head of MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering never thought he’d be a player in the hunt for cures to malaria and pancreatic cancer.

It turns out, however, that Suresh’s expertise in nanotechnology is quite applicable to biology and medicine. With colleagues in engineering, science a

Scientists from MIT’s Center for Cancer Research have developed a new mouse model that closely resembles Li-Fraumeni Syndrome (LFS) in humans, a syndrome that predisposes those affected to a broad range of cancers. Some 95 percent of LFS patients develop cancer by age 65.

This work, which was reported in the Dec. 17 issue of Cell, could lead to a treatment for LFS and aid in the development of treatments for other cancers.

The research shows that a single point mu

The binding of a viral RNA and a viral protein brings about a physical transformation that dupes host cells into enthusiastically copying the invading pathogen, according to a team of researchers from MIT, Harvard, and Harvard Medical School.

In the December 17 issue of Science, collaborators led by Professor Lee Gehrke of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology published dramatic three-dimensional images of RNA-protein interactions in alfalfa mosaic virus (A

Duct tape that never loses its stick. Bandages that come off without sticky residue or an “ouch.”

Gecko feet may hold the key to the development of synthetic self-cleaning adhesives, according to a biologist from Lewis & Clark College. The research is published in the online early edition of the Proceedings from the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, or PNAS (http://www.pnas.org) during the week of Jan. 3, 2005 (Article #08304: “Evidence for self-cleaning in geck

Each year more than 45,000 Americans suffer burns serious enough to require a hospital stay, according to the American Burn Association. While the traditional therapy of using skin grafts to cover burn sites has improved, a number of problems including scarring, infection and poor adhesion remain.

“Skin grafts involve taking skin (both the upper epidermal and the underlying dermis) from an unburned site on the patient’s body or from a cadaver and grafting it on to the burn wound,”

For some years ago now biochemotherapy has replaced chemotherapy for the treatment of melanomas. In biochemotherapy, together with chemotherapuetic agents, substances that activate the patient’s immune system are used with the objective of obtaining a reinforced immune system in order to help the patient overcome the illness.

Now, however, the activity of a number of these activating substances has been questioned, given that they have not been found to extend the life of the patient compar

A substance found in the urine of pregnant women can be measured to predict the later development of preeclampsia, according to research from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health.

“We may have reached a turning point in the extensive federal research investigation of this frequent, life-threatening complication of pregnancy,” said Duane Alexander, M.D., Director of the NICHD. “This finding sets the stage for the dev

A woman’s risk of ovarian cancer rises significantly if she carries either of two previously unexamined variations in the gene that codes for the progesterone receptor, according to a team of researchers led by scientists from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California.

The study, which is being published in the January 5th issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, was initially supposed to be a more in-depth look at one particular versi

Shielding the male gonads using a type of lead capsule previously only used in X-ray imaging also reduces indirect radiation to the testes during MDCT of the abdomen and pelvis, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Technology of Aachen in Germany. Protecting the testes from radiation is important because the testes are sensitive to radiation damage, which could result in cancer, infertility, or sperm mutation.

For the study, the researchers analyzed 66 m

Over the past five years, so-called molecularly targeted therapies for cancer have held out great promise. These therapies are based on blocking a cancer-causing genetic pathway that has been turned on in a tumor, thereby allowing it to proliferate and grow in an uncontrolled manner. For a small number of cancers, chronic treatment with molecularly targeted therapies has been shown to be effective in the clinic – at least in the short-term. Recently, based on animal models, several investigators ha

A team headed by scientists at Northwestern University, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), has shown how to visualize the human brain as a massive, interacting, complex network governed by a few underlying dynamic principles.

The research opens fascinating possibilities for future basic and applied studies to investigate the dynamics of brain states, particularly in cases of dysfunction — such as schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease and chronic pain — withou

In a paper published this week in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, engineers report creating a small swatch of heart tissue that displays many of the hallmarks of mature cardiac tissue, including regular contractions.

“We have been trying to engineer a patch of tissue that has the same properties as native heart tissue, or myocardium, that could be attached over injured myocardium,” said Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, a principal research sci