Researchers are probing details of how HIV commandeers genes in infected cells to disguise itself from the immune system. The researchers, from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, have identified cellular proteins expressed during HIV infection that enable HIV-infected cells to avoid apoptosis, a common cell suicide event. This survival mechanism allows the virus to maintain the infection within the compromised cells.

These findings, as yet based on studies in cells, not in patien

’A genomic approach to the identification of genetic and environmental components underlying the quality of the grape’. This is the title of the R+D project financed by Genoma España in which the Department of Vegetable Physiology of the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Navarre is participating.

Over the next three years the Fundación Genoma España will provide two million euros to identify the genes responsible for the quality of grapes. Six research teams are working on a dessert

Several mammal species other than ruminants and camels have a multi-chambered forestomach – kangaroos, hippos, colobus monkeys, peccaries, sloths – but they do not ruminate.

As studies on the digestive physiology of these species are largely missing, it is generally assumed that their forestomach functions in the same way as that of ruminants, the most prominent characteristic of which is the selective retention of larger particles. However, retaining larger particles (which are more

The way researchers currently assess changes in psychological distress may be wrong and lead to misleading and disappointing results. These are the conclusions of a paper published in the third 2004 issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics by three investigators of the University of Bologna (Giovanni A. Fava, Chiara Ruini and Chiara Rafanelli).

Their conclusions are supported by accompanying editorials by Per Bech (Denmark) Carlo Faravelli (Italy) and Andrew Nierenberg (USA)

Psych

Imagine what it was like to take a photograph of an object such as a tree, before the wide availablilty of zoom lenses. You would be able to make out the shape and the branches from a distance but you wouldn’t be able to see the smaller branches or leaves. Until recently, Doctors have been in a similar situation regarding NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) imaging of organs and other features deep within the body. Thanks to a new NMR microscope developed by Oxford Researchers, Doctors will in futu

A novel rat behavioral model of tinnitus that will allow researchers to study this debilitating condition in a manner never before possible and to test potential treatments has been developed by researchers with the University at Buffalo’s Center for Hearing & Deafness.

Center researchers, who have been studying tinnitus for more than a decade, will use this animal model to monitor the activity of individual neurons in the animals’ brains where the phantom sounds of tinnitus are t

So-called “exercise hypertension,” an abnormally high spike in blood pressure experienced by generally healthy people during a workout, is a known risk factor for permanent and serious high blood pressure at rest. But who gets it, and why, has been largely unknown.

Now, Johns Hopkins scientists say they have reason to believe that the problem is rooted in the failure of cells that line the blood vessels to allow the arteries to expand to accommodate increased blood flow during exertion.

A novel gene therapy that responds specifically to oxygen-starved heart muscle may protect against further injury following a heart attack, a study by University of South Florida cardiovascular researchers found.

Their findings are reported in the April 2004 issue of the journal Hypertension.

M. Ian Phillips, PhD, DSc, and his team at the USF College of Medicine and All Children’s Hospital Research Institute designed a kind of oxygen-sensitive biosensor that turns on protecti

A comparison of various guidelines and strategies for treatment of sore throat provides information that may help optimize use of diagnostic tests and reduce unnecessary use of antibiotics, according to a study in the April 7 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

According to background information in the article, recent guidelines for management of a sore throat (pharyngitis) vary in their recommendations concerning antibiotic treatment and the need for laboratory

It all started with an aquarium his father bought for the family home in Venezuela. The fish swam and ate and created an environment that captivated the watchful eye of then-10-year-old Hernan Lopez-Fernandez.

“One of the first fish of my own was called a Texas Cichlid,” Lopez-Fernandez said. “I was hooked on fish.”

Little did the young South American boy realize the role Texas would play in his life. Now a doctoral student in Texas A&M University’s wildlife and fisheries sci

Gene cassettes using self-cleaving peptides allowed T lymphocytes to construct a key multi-protein immune receptor complex

A genetic trick used by viruses to replicate themselves has been adapted for laboratory use to build complex protein structures required by immune system cells, according to investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

This approach could also be used to develop new gene therapy vectors in cases when cells must be modified to make high le

A certain species of tick has learned the secret to staying slim–by remaining virgins. Female ticks who mate will drink 100 times their weight in host blood, whereas virgins aren’t so gluttonous says a University of Alberta researcher who has discovered a protein that may offer clues to a $10 billion global tick problem.

“What happens is that a female will remain attached to a host, eating slowly and waiting to be fertilized,” said Dr. Reuben Kaufman from the U of A’s Faculty of

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas are the first to use genetically engineered mice containing a fluorescent molecule to examine in real time the chemical reactions that result in smooth-muscle contraction.

Smooth muscle, found in the walls of blood vessels and in internal organs such as lungs, stomach and the bladder, contracts as the end result of a series of chemical reactions. In a new study, UT Southwestern researchers report that one set of chemical reactions resu

New Caledonian crows, known to be very proficient tool-users, have a preferred way of holding their tools comparable to the way humans are either right- or left-handed, according to research by Oxford zoologists, recently published in ’Biology Letters’.

Studying the tool use of 10 captive New Caledonian crows, the researchers found that each bird had a consistent preference for holding a piece of dowelling either near its left or its right cheek when trying to retrieve mealworms f

A new invention that could dramatically change the lives of millions of people administering medication at home, has received investment worth £120,000 from NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) – the organisation that nurtures UK creativity and innovation.

A plaster that can be worn on the skin, containing a tiny pump, could soon be improving the quality of life for those on fertility treatments, or diabetics needing regular insulin.

The pioneering te

Researchers at Jefferson Medical College and Duke University have used gene therapy to help damaged heart cells regain strength and beat normally again in the laboratory. The work takes the scientists one step closer to eventual clinical trials in humans.

Walter Koch, Ph.D., director of the Center for Translational Medicine of the Department of Medicine at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, and his colleagues at Duke used a virus to carry a gene into t