Scientists in Southampton have developed non-invasive technology to measure the fluid pressure in the brain safely and painlessly which they hope will eventually reduce the need for a lumbar puncture. Collaborators in London now believe it could be a major advance in the diagnosis and treatment of conditions such as meningitis, head injury and sleeping disorders. It could even be used by astronauts in space.

At the Physiological Society meeting in London today (18 December), Dr Jea

In experiments with fruit flies, Johns Hopkins researchers have found that blindness induced by constant light results directly from the loss of a key light-detecting protein, rather than from the overall death of cells in the retina, which in humans is a light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye.

The research, reported in the Dec. 14 issue of Current Biology, overturns the long-standing belief that blindness from chronic light exposure is a direct result of overall retinal deg

In a finding akin to discovering pages missing from an antique car repair manual, researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have linked for the first time two biological processes crucial to cell survival.

The finding, reported in the Dec. 17, 2004, issue of the journal Cell, provides the first link between a cell’s DNA repair machinery and its DNA storage and retrieval machinery. The two processes have been studied independently, and each is essential f

Rhesus macaques communicate between themselves using a complex series of sounds that can signify things as distinct as the presence of danger, particular social relationships, emotions or food alerts. Now scientists in the latest issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, while analyzing the brain areas activated during the recognition of these sounds, found that not only do monkeys seem to interpret these sounds using abstract representations like

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have shown that some long-term breast-cancer survivors may have innate mechanisms to keep breast cancer at bay.

Their findings, published in the December issue of Clinical Cancer Research and available online, show that one-third of the longtime disease-free patients in the study had circulating tumor cells (CTCs). The presence of CTCs is often associated with a higher risk of recurrence if they are found soon after a mastect

Results challenge public health service efforts to increase vaginal delivery

For a pregnant woman who already has had one cesarean delivery, an attempt at vaginal delivery is more dangerous for the baby than a second cesarean section, according to a research study at 19 academic health centers, including Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

The study, published in today’s New England Journal of Medicine, showed that vaginal birth after a cesarean section (VBAC

Ranitidine could become new treatment for cerebral ischemia

Ranitidine, a widely used substance used as an antihistaminic drug against gastric ulcers, may become a new treatment for cerebral ischemia caused by craneoencephalic infarcts or traumatisms, the third leading cause of deaths in industrialised countries. In experiments with a model of cerebral ischemia using rats, a team from the Institute of Neurosciences of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain) has observed how th

Javier Ochoa Repáraz has developmed an acellular vaccine aginst Salmonella enteritidis.

This involves a world pandemia considered to be the most importante zoonosis or illness/infection transmissible salmonellosis by animals to humans under natural conditions. It is estimated that the incidence of acute worldwide is more than a thousand million cases per annum and causes three million deaths.

The project developed by Javier Ochoa at the University of Navarre Faculty of Sci

Regeneration of damaged hearts using blood stem cells now appears to be clinically promising, say Texas researchers who show that in mice, human stem cells use different methods to morph into two kinds of cells needed to restore heart function – cardiac muscle cells that contract the heart as well as the endothelial cells that line blood vessels found throughout the organ.

Using a sophisticated way of examining the “humanness” of mouse heart cells, researchers report in the December

Dutch research has shown that the development of permanent resistance by bacteria and fungi against antibiotics cannot be prevented in the longer-term. The only solution is to reduce the dependence on antibiotics by using these less.

The reduced effectiveness of antibiotics is not only an important issue for human health. For example, plants can have a gene inserted which enables them to secrete an antibiotic against fungi. Siemen Schoustra believes that the added value of these gen

Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered how one family of proteins repels growing nerves and keeps them properly on track during development. The finding, described in the Dec. 16 issue of Neuron, might provide a chance to overcome the proteins’ later role in preventing regrowth of injured nerves, the researchers say.

The proteins, known as chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans (CSPGs), have long been known to prevent nerve regeneration after injury by recruiting a stew of other prote

Could lead to novel approaches in the treatment of HIV infected individuals

CANVAC, the Canadian Network for Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics, is proud to announce the development of a new method to assess how well the thymus (an organ located at the base of the neck) works and the discovery of a functional abnormality of this organ in HIV-infected individuals.

The team of investigators led by Dr. Rafick-Pierre Sékaly, professor at Université de Montréal, scientist at the CH

Exceeding rates observed in previous research, a new study found four out of five sexually active adolescent women infected with human papillomavirus, a virus linked to cervical cancer and genital warts. Darron R. Brown and colleagues of Indiana University School of Medicine studied 60 adolescent women, ages 14 to 17, at three primary care clinics in Indianapolis. They reported their results in the Jan. 15 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online.

Human papi

Could be target for cancer therapeutics

MA-Researchers have discovered an enzyme that plays an important role in controlling which genes will be turned on or off at any given time in a cell. The novel protein helps orchestrate the patterns of gene activity that determine normal cell function. Their disruption can lead to cancer.

The elusive enzyme, whose presence in cells was suspected but not proven for decades, came to light in the laboratory of Yang Shi, HMS professor o

Dutch researcher Kirsten ten Tusscher has developed a model that can simulate the electrical behaviour of the heart during heart rhythm disorders. One of the things her model revealed is that the electrical activity of the heart during a rhythm disorder is much less chaotic than was originally thought.

Kirsten ten Tusscher first of all made a model that described the electrical behaviour of individual human heart muscle cells. She demonstrated that the behaviour of this model cor

Researchers from Finland have found that the antibiotic ciprofloxacin (brand names Ciproxin, Ciprofloxacin etc.) greatly increases the concentrations of tizanidine (Sirdalud, Zanaflex) in blood. Concomitant use of ciprofloxacin and tizanidine results in severe and prolonged decrease in blood pressure and greatly enhances central nervous system effects.

This previously unrecognised interaction can be dangerous, particularly in elderly patients, and the concomitant use of the two age