Probiotics are not always the right approach.

Millions of women around the world have probably used yoghurt as a folk remedy to prevent thrush while taking antibiotics. A Melbourne GP and PhD student has proven that Lactobacillus acidophilus, a key bacterium in yoghurt, was not effective in the prevention of thrush (‘vulvovaginitis’) after antibiotics. Her findings were published recently in the eminent British Medical Journal (BMJ). “It’s a reminder that all medicines, even natura

A new non-invasive test for kidney disease, developed by clinicians at Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust and Imperial College London, is providing a simple, safe, cheap and reliable method of detecting kidney disease. The new test, reported today in the journal Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, can detect disease before symptoms become apparent, and offers a quicker way of finding out if patients are responding to treatment – which could mean that some patients might not need costly dialysis.

A team of scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Weizmann Institute of Science has revealed the structure of a cellular editor that “cuts and pastes” the first draft of RNA straight after it is formed from its DNA template. Many diseases appear to be tied to mistakes in this process, and understanding the workings of the machinery involved may lead to the ability to correct or prevent them in the future.

Since the discovery, around 25 years ago, that the bits of

Millions of genetic tests using just one drop of blood.

Queensland PhD student Angus Johnston has invented a unique technology with the potential to test for hundreds of diseases, cancers and genes in one, cheap, test. He hopes that within five years the technology will be available in a desktop unit for less than AU$30,000. “This is a unique, patented technology that has the potential to revolutionise genetic testing,” said Angus Johnston, PhD student and co-inventor of the technolo

The bacteria that destroy about one-third of the potent greenhouse gas methane before it can reach the atmosphere use a neat trick to gather a key nutrient for the job. They produce a small organic compound and release it into the surrounding environment, where it “lassos” atoms of copper. The bacteria then reabsorb the compound and use the copper as a weapon against methane, from which they extract energy. The crystal structure of the compound–called methanobactin–will be reported in the Sept. 10

The global extinction crisis ignores thousands of affiliated species that are also at risk of being wiped out, making the list of endangered species much larger and more serious than originally thought, says a study produced in part at the University of Alberta.

“What we found is that with the extinction of a bird, or a mammal or a plant, you aren’t just necessarily wiping out just one, single species,” said Dr. Heather Proctor from the U of A’s Department of Biological

Scientists at the University of Edinburgh are closer to correcting an abnormal gene which causes one of the crippling muscle wasting diseases known collectively as Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease. Their findings may lead to the development of gene therapy to treat patients with CMT disease, it is reported in the current issue of Nature (9 September).

CMT affects around 23,000 people in the UK. It leads to muscle weakness and wasting in the feet, lower legs, hands and forearms and can conf

Painful and damaging chemotherapy may one day be a thing of the past. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Purdue University have developed nano-sized particles that can target and trick cancer cells into absorbing them. Once inside, the particles may soon be able to deliver a pharmaceutical payload, killing the tumor from within, avoiding the destruction of healthy cells responsible for much of the damage caused by traditional chemotherapy. The research is published in the Augu

From mollusks to mammals, newly discovered chemical pathways of serotonin in the nervous system are paving a path toward future pharmaceutical treatments for depression and other disorders.

“Understanding novel serotonin pathways in a tissue-dependent manner is useful for the development of pharmaceuticals intended to preserve serotonergic signaling,” said Jeffrey N. Stuart, a doctoral student in the department of chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

A combination of luck and scientific curiosity has produced a mouse lacking two isoenzymes, MAO A and MAO B, that have been linked to violent criminal behavior and Parkinson’s disease. The MAO A/B knockout mouse should provide an excellent model in which to address the specific roles of these neurotransmitters and their receptors in anxiety and stress-related disorders.

The research appears as the “Paper of the Week” in the September 17 issue of the Journal of Biological Chem

Discovery common to zebrafish and humans may lead to therapies that interrupt colon cancer development

Mutations in the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) tumor suppressor gene have been found to cause 85 percent of colon cancers. Now researchers at the University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute know why. In a paper published on-line Sept. 9 in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, they explain that APC controls the conversion of dietary vitamin A into retinoic acid. If this

Researchers at the University of Bergen are now able to present new information on the HOX genes – the “software” to design animals. The findings are published in today’s issue of Nature.

Some years ago researchers at the Sars Centre for Marine Molecular Biology at the UoB discovered the smallest genome among vertebrates in a tiny urochordate called Oikopleura dioica. The organism is five millimetres long and the genome consists of only 70 million megabases (Mb). Although the human g

IL-7, a hormone-like protein involved in cell-cell interaction, has been associated with increased survival and expansion of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL). Now, in the latest issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine, a team of scientists, not only confirms the essential role of this protein in the disease but also, for the first time, identifies the biochemical pathway affected by IL-7 in T-ALL cells, a discovery which could lead to the development of potential new treatments

There’s increasing evidence that green tea offers health benefits, reports the September issue of Mayo Clinic Women’s HealthSource. Recent studies have reported that polyphenols, compounds found in green tea, may offer protection against certain cancers and may aid in the destruction of cancer cells.

Now, Mayo Clinic researchers have found that another component in green tea helps kill the most common form of leukemia in the United States. The component, known as epigallocatechin-3-

What do Smallpox, AIDS, SARS, Monkeypox, West Nile Virus, Chestnut Blight, Dutch Elm Disease, Sudden Oak Death Syndrome, Sea Otter Mortality and Avian Flu have to do with the world-wide disappearance of frogs and salamanders, otherwise known as “Amphibian Decline”? And with bait shops?

These diseases and their pathogens, with the unsuspecting support of humans and our global activities, all have been involved in microbial invasions of sorts. The transportation and sale of live bait

BU neurobiologists find evidence hippocampus in rat brain triggers special form of memory

For millennia, the process of memory and remembering has intrigued scholars and scientists. In 350 B.C., Aristotle, in his seminal treatise on the subject, described it as having two forms: familiarity and recollection. Of these, he considered recollection to be a purely human condition. That tenet is now being challenged by researchers at Boston University.

Neurobiologists at Boston