Scientists at Bristol University have found that a protein present in normal body tissues can prevent tumour growth.

A team led by Dr Dave Bates, British Heart Foundation Lecturer, and Dr Steve Harper, Senior Research Fellow in the Microvascular Research Laboratories, in the Department of Physiology at Bristol University, have discovered that a type of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) found in normal tissue, including blood, can prevent cancers from growing. The re

Discovery means angiogenesis may one day be stopped, started for therapeutic use

A protein important to nerve development serves the dual purpose of stimulating the growth of blood vessels, researchers from the University of Utah School of Medicine and Stanford University have discovered. The discovery opens the possibility that blood vessel growth (angiogenesis) one day may be induced, or stymied, for therapeutic use against heart disease, cancer, and other illnesses, according to

When earthlings make their first attempt to land on Mars, E. Paul Larrat will be justified in thinking he played a small role in the 35-million-mile voyage.

Larrat, associate dean of the University of Rhode Island’s College of Pharmacy, spent much of the summer as a National Aeronautics and Space Administration Faculty Fellow at the Advanced Life Support Center at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Larrat was one of 100 fellows chosen from a field of 700 nominees to

A malaria protein that traps infected cells in the placenta may provide a promising new target for a vaccine against pregnancy-associated malaria (PAM). Salanti and colleagues show that the malaria protein VAR2CSA is displayed on malaria-infected cells that bind to the placenta, as they report in the November 1 issue of The Journal of Experimental Medicine. This causes a dangerous infection, which puts both mother and developing child at risk.

Most adults living in malaria-endemi

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) improves mood, quality of life and activities of daily living in patients with major depression, according to researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, “Quality of life and function are improved in ECT patients as early as two weeks after the conclusion of ECT,” said Vaughn McCall, M.D., professor and chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine and the lead author, writing in the November issue of the British Journal of

Mitochondrial remodeling in adipose tissue associated with obesity and treatment with rosiglitazone

Energy homeostasis is controlled by a complex series of cellular and hormonal interactions. White fat tissue has been shown by mouse-knockout studies and the identification of fat-specific secreted factors to be central to this process. Drugs for type 2 diabetes that enhance sensitivity to insulin, such as rosiglitazone, work through mechanisms that involve fat. Cell culture work

Smokers can add pre-cancerous growths in the colon to the host of increased health risks they face, according to two studies presented at the 69th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology. Researchers at Our Lady of Mercy Medical Center examined the relationship between polyps and dietary and recreational habits as well as medications in a prospective study of 157 patients with a mean age of 55 years and found smokers faced a significant risk of developing colon poly

In the first study to directly compare the emergence of antibiotic resistance following topical treatment between two antibiotics routinely prescribed for a common vaginal infection, researchers from the Magee-Womens Research Institute have found antibiotic-resistant bacteria more likely to develop with the drug clindamycin than metronidazole. The study is being published in the October issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Researchers followed 99 women be

Overturning a scientific stereotype, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have discovered a new role for a key protein involved in muscle contraction and shown it is present not just in the cytoplasm of cells but in the nucleus as well.

Actin has been pigeonholed as a molecular motor, explains Primal de Lanerolle, professor of physiology and biophysics at UIC. “Whenever cells move or divide, actin is involved, like its partner myosin.” “But in the nucleus,” de

Researchers at the University of Minnesota Stem Cell Institute are one step closer to understanding how blood cells develop through the use of human embryonic stem cells. The research better defines the conditions under which blood cell development occurs, making the process easier to replicate. The findings are published in the October issue of Experimental Hematology.

“These findings do more than give us a basic understanding of blood cell replacement–they allow us to consi

An errant enzyme linked to bipolar disorder, in the brain’s prefrontal cortex, impairs cognition under stress, an animal study shows. The disturbed thinking, impaired judgment, impulsivity, and distractibility seen in mania, a destructive phase of bipolar disorder, may be traceable to overactivity of protein kinase C (PKC), suggests the study, funded by the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and National Institute on Aging (NIA), and the

Scientists have discovered that a cellular enzyme helps ferry HIV genetic instructions out of the cell nucleus where they can then be translated into proteins to begin their most destructive work. The cellular enzyme represents a potential new target for developing improved HIV drugs, say the researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and the McGill University AIDS Center.

Kuan-Teh Jeang, M.D., Ph

Ever since the approval of Gleevec in 2001, a cancer-cell-specific drug used to treat chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), the field of cancer therapeutics has been rushing full speed into the era of so-called “targeted” medicines. The challenge of developing these medicines, which spare normal cells because they are designed to kill only cancer cells, has been complicated by the recognition that resistance to even targeted therapies can develop. In the case of Gleevec, for example, which disable

Inhibiting Apolipoprotein E possible means of therapeutic intervention for Alzheimer’s disease

A research team led by University of South Florida neuroscientist Huntington Potter, PhD, CEO of the Johnnie B. Byrd Sr. Alzheimer’s Center & Research Institute, for the first time has defined how the protein Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) contributes to both the formation of amyloid brain lesions and the memory loss associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The research, conduct

Genetic testing for disorders, especially in large families, can save the public health care system thousands of dollars in the long term, according to new research at the University of Alberta.

“Government is looking for cost-effectiveness in all forms of medicine, and we want to show that this form of testing is worthwhile,” said Dr. Dawna Gilchrist, a specialist in adult medical genetics at the University of Alberta. A one-year clinical case study conducted by Gilchrist, a

Russian researchers have recorded the sounds audible only inside the right part of the dolphin’s nasal passage. Animals produce them during echolocation. This research can shed light on how the cetacea produce ultrasonic signals.

Researchers of the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences, have obtained the confirmation of the hypothesis that the cetacea, dolphins in particular, produce sounds with the help of some pneumatic mechanism, i.e