Projects to expand knowledge about plants of economic importance

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has made 22 new awards as part of the seventh year of its Plant Genome Research Program (PGRP). From apples to Zea mays, the program’s goal is to expand knowledge about the biology of the plant kingdom, especially plants that people around the world rely on for food, clothing and other needs.

The awards involve researchers from 56 institutions in 22 states, as well as colla

Marine microbes shape the chemical composition of the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere, yet we know essentially nothing about them. Now, thanks to major grants from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, MIT researchers aim to learn dramatically more about some of the most important organisms on the globe.

Professors Penny Chisholm and Ed DeLong are among the four Moore Foundation Investigators in Marine Science selected nationally. Each inaugural investigator will receive almost $5

USC study hints at new targets for killing cancer cells

Researchers who found that fish oils appear to reduce breast cancer risk have now discovered that the oils may especially benefit women with particular genetic makeups. The protective effects of fish oils, called marine n-3 or omega-3 fatty acids, are linked to the cancer-fighting properties of the oil’s byproducts, propose investigators from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California and the Natio

While researchers in Alaska this summer used high-tech submersibles and huge ships to plumb the deep-ocean depths in search of new species, a team of scuba diving scientists working from an Alaska fishing boat has discovered an entirely new marine habitat just a stone’s throw from shore.

The discovery in June of a single bed of rhodoliths, colorful marine algae that resemble coral, was made near Knight Island in Prince William Sound by scientists at the University of Alaska Fai

More than 60,000 Canadians will be diagnosed with cancer this year and will require special end-of-life or palliative care. According to practitioners, researchers and families there has been a lack of palliative care services for these patients. Thanks to new funding from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), McGill researchers will now be able to evaluate the most effective and efficient types and methods of palliative care.

Their programme, led by Robin Cohen of McGill’s D

An “old” drug has unique benefits for patients with acute myocardial infarction, a finding that may contribute to a new understanding of how heart attacks develop, according to an article in the July/August American Journal of Therapeutics.

In the definitive report, Dr. Marvin Bacaner of University of Minnesota describes the effects of the antiarrhythmic drug bretylium tosylate in preventing dangerous heart rhythm disorders and other complications after acute myocardial infarction (AM

’Targeted’ drug might treat skeletal disorders and cancers

Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have prolonged the lives of mice with a rare blood disorder by using an experimental drug that blocks signals promoting runaway growth of blood cells. The researchers also tested the drug, PKC412, in a patient with the hard-to-treat disease, called Myeloproliferative Disease (MPD), and saw her symptoms improve.

PKC412, like th

In the first such clinical trial of its kind, researchers at Duke University Medical Center have found that acupuncture is more effective at reducing nausea and vomiting after major breast surgery than the leading medication.

The researchers also found that patients who underwent the 5,000-year-old Chinese practice reported decreased postoperative pain and increased satisfaction with their postoperative recovery. In conducting the trial, the researchers also demonstrated that the p

The compound in marijuana that produces a high, delta-9 tetrahydrocannbinol or THC, may block the spread of several forms of cancer causing herpes viruses, University of South Florida College of Medicine scientists report. The findings, published Sept. 15 in the online journal BMC Medicine, could lead to the creation of antiviral drugs based on nonpsychoactive derivatives of THC.

The gamma herpes viruses include Kaposi’s Sarcoma Associated Herpes virus, which is associated with

A new strategy for cancer therapy, which converts the tumor-promoting effect of the immune system’s inflammatory response into a cancer-killing outcome, is suggested in research findings by investigators at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine.

The findings provide new insight into the immune system’s response to inflammation, the connection between inflammation and malignancy, and how the delicate balance between cancer promotion and inhibiti

Scientists have identified what may be the first nontoxic treatment for a subset of medulloblastoma, the most common type of malignant pediatric brain tumor. The finding is encouraging in that such precise, targeted therapies may someday replace traditional treatments that can have overwhelmingly negative side effects for pediatric cancer patients. The research is published in the September issue of Cancer Cell.

“Therapy for pediatric cancers of the central nervous system has not i

A new research study identifies a molecule that promotes one of the most deadly cancers in humans and reveals the molecular mechanisms underlying the protective effects of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) against the disease. The research, published in the September issue of Cancer Cell, identifies potential targets for future therapeutics aimed at the prevention and treatment of cancer of the colon and rectum.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second most common caus

Researchers have combined sophisticated biochemical and imaging techniques to get a glimpse of the stepwise assembly of amyloid fibers in a yeast prion protein. Their findings suggest that these structured fibers form in competition with the amorphous globules that some believe may cause toxicity in amyloid diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. The researchers say this may have important implications for those designing drugs to prevent formation of the brain-damaging proteins i

A single gene called cylE within the important bacterial pathogen Group B Streptococcus (GBS), controls two factors that act together as a “sword” and “shield” to protect the bacteria from the killing effects of the immune system’s white blood cells, according to researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine.

GBS is the leading cause of serious bacterial infections such as meningitis and pneumonia in newborns and is increasingly recognized as

Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center now have evidence that receptors found on tumors that were believed to function only on the surface of cells can actually switch on genes inside a cell’s nucleus, thus promoting cancer development in two distinct ways.

They specifically found that HER-2 cell surface receptors, known to promote breast and other cancers when they allow too many growth signals to enter a cell, can actually travel into the nucleu

Reading the fossil record, a paleontologist can peer into evolutionary history and see the surface features that plants and animals and, occasionally, microbes have left behind.

Now, scouring the genome of a Japanese yeast, scientists have found a trackway of fossil genes in the making, providing a rare look at how an organism, in response to the demands of its environment, has changed its inner chemistry and lost the ability to metabolize a key sugar.

The finding is a s