BACKGROUND: Insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE) is a protein known to play a role in eliminating amyloid peptides that cause destructive plaques and tangles in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Until now, little has been known about the cellular and molecular regulation of IDE.

FINDINGS: Using animal models and human tissue, the research team 1) identified a shortfall of IDE protein in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients; 2) found a cause-effect relationship between insul

A multicenter study of 821 patients referred for breast biopsy based on prior examinations that suggested cancer finds that while magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) distinguishes between benign and malignant breast tumors better than mammography, biopsies are still needed to confirm the diagnosis.

The study, called the International Breast MR Consortium, was carried out in 14 university hospitals in the United States and Europe, including Johns Hopkins, from June 1998 through Octob

As survival rates have steadily improved for children with heart defects, physicians have focused more attention on improving quality-of-life factors such as neurological and cognitive abilities. A new study shows that newborns with congenital heart disease often have abnormally low blood flow in their brains before they undergo surgery.

Researchers from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia led the study, published in the December issue of The Journal of Thoracic and C

Teenagers suffering from bulimia may in fact be fighting a two-front war, coping with the effects of a devastating eating disorder while struggling with a chronic form of depression, reveals research by Texas A&M University psychologist Marisol Perez, who says the finding has critical implications for the way the disorder is treated.

Often masked by the bulimia itself, dysthymia – a lower-level, chronic form of depression – is often present in bulimics and may even predispose t

Endoscopy can be a deeply uncomfortable experience. Improving matters, BIOLOCH researchers are attempting to apply the motion techniques used by lower animal forms to endoscopy technology to develop a prototype capable of ‘pulling’ itself into a patient’s internals, rather than being pushed as it is now.

Having a tube pushed inside you, no matter how small or how sensitively applied, is not a procedure anyone would want to repeat. Plus there is always the risk of tearing de

Some of us, when awake in the middle of the night, feel an urge to visit the kitchen. This could explain results of previous studies that have shown a link between short sleep duration and high body mass index (BMI). But a study by Emmanuel Mignot and colleagues suggests that it’s not just the additional snacking opportunities that make short sleepers more likely to be overweight.

Intrigued by the connection between sleep and BMI, and by recent studies showing that sleep depriva

The human parathyroid gland, which regulates the level of calcium in the blood, probably evolved from the gills of fish, according to researchers from King’s College London.

Writing in the latest edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Professor Anthony Graham and Dr Masataka Okabe suggest that the gills of ancestral marine creatures, which were used to regulate calcium levels, were internalised rather than lost when land-living, four-limbed animals – the tet

Results represent significant development toward therapeutic cloning of stem cells

Using newer cloning techniques, including the “gentle squeeze” method described by South Korean researchers who earlier this year reported creating the first cloned human embryonic stem cell line, University of Pittsburgh scientists have taken a significant step toward successful therapeutic cloning of nonhuman primate embryos.

It is the first time researchers have applied methods developed

Understanding how muscle cells form is crucial to developing new treatments for diseases such as muscular dystrophy and to treating muscle injuries. However, while scientists have focused on muscle cells in culture, they know little about how muscle cells form in a developing embryo.

In this month’s issue of the journal Developmental Cell, Clarissa Henry, assistant professor in the University of Maine Dept. of Biological Sciences, reports findings from a study of muscle cell d

Chemical analyses of ancient organics absorbed, and preserved, in pottery jars from the Neolithic village of Jiahu, in Henan province, Northern China, have revealed that a mixed fermented beverage of rice, honey, and fruit was being produced as early as 9,000 years ago, approximately the same time that barley beer and grape wine were beginning to be made in the Middle East.

In addition, liquids more than 3,000 years old, remarkably preserved inside tightly lidded bronze vessels,

Sea urchin eggs, a common model for human fertility research, create a protein shield just minutes after fertilization. In Developmental Cell, Brown University biologists reveal their discovery of an enzyme that generates hydrogen peroxide, a free radical critical to this protective process. The finding illuminates a survival mechanism shared across species.

Brown University researchers have discovered an enzyme that produces hydrogen peroxide in the fertilized eggs of sea urchins

UC Riverside Research Showing How Smoke Complicates Healing Process Selected by Cell Biology Society as Press-Worthy from More Than 1,200 Submissions

Cigarette smoke, whether first- or second-hand, complicates the careful cellular choreography of wound healing, according to a paper by University of California, Riverside researchers that was included in the 2004 Press Book of the 44th Annual Meeting of the American Society For Cell Biology (ASCB).

Cigarette smoke dela

The recent rise in obesity may be partly due to the reduced amount of time we spend asleep, according to new research from the University of Bristol, UK.

Dr Shahrad Taheri from Bristol University, and colleagues in the United States, examined the role of two key hormones that are involved in regulating appetite – ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin increases feelings of hunger while leptin acts to suppress appetite.

People who habitually slept for 5 hours were found to have 15%

The Novosibirsk researchers have managed to establish connection between mice’s aggressive behavior, biochemical modifications in their brain and the genes that cause those modifications.

Aggressive behavior is to a large extent genetically determined. The evidence of that are experiments with laboratory animals, including their successful selection into high- and low-aggressive lines. However, the “aggression gene” as such will hardly be ever found. Nevertheless, the researcher

ASH news tips from M. D. Anderson Cancer Center

The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center offers these news items presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH).

Combining two biologic agents with chemotherapy forms a potent drug regimen that is showing promise in treating patients who have relapsed with the most common kind of leukemia, chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cance

A noninvasive fingertip test can identify patients with the earliest stages of heart disease and may prove cost-effective as a screening test, according to the findings of a Mayo Clinic study published this week in the Journal of American College of Cardiology.

“Atherosclerosis tends to affect all of the blood vessels in the body, and is not just limited to the arteries of the heart,” explains Amir Lerman, M.D., the Mayo Clinic cardiologist who led the study. “We expected patie