A research group at the University of Helsinki, Finland, has found a gene defect that causes hereditary colorectal cancer and defects in dentition. The finding was published online on March 23 in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

The groups led by professors Sinikka Pirinen and Irma Thesleff at the Institute of Dentistry and Institute of Biotechnology of the University of Helsinki are working on the genetic basis of hereditary dental aberrations .

The group identified a mutati

With prostate cancer the second leading cause of cancer deaths in men in many industrialised countries, a new diagnostic instrument offers the possibility of rapid and early warning detection and screening of this major killer.

The three-year IST programme-funded PAMELA project aimed to develop a new analytical instrument that allows very fast blood analysis to determine the presence and amount of prostate specific antigen (PSA) present – important for the follow-up of prostate cancer.

Texas A&M University researchers are studying the genes of the mosquito species, Aedes aegypti, the carrier for both dengue and yellow fever, hoping to keep deadly mosquito-borne diseases at bay.

Dr. Patricia Pietrantonio, associate professor of entomology with the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, is leading a team of researchers studying the hormone-controlled mechanism by which mosquitoes excrete waste.

“This research has far-reaching implications for the discovery of new

Resource should greatly speed gene analysis and discovery

Researchers have produced vast libraries of short segments of ribonucleic acid (RNA) that can be used to turn off individual human and mouse genes to study their function.
The libraries will be made widely available to laboratories studying human biology and disease. The researchers are optimistic that the libraries will become a powerful research tool for gene analysis and discovery.

Two independent research gro

First protein difference between humans and primates that correlates to anatomical changes in early hominid fossil record

In an effort to find the remaining genes that govern myosin–the major contractile protein that makes up muscle tissue–researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have made a discovery that may be central to answering key questions about human evolution.

Published in the March 25 issue of Nature, Penn researchers have found one small

A new study finds that the olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) exhibit activity-dependent survival, a property that may be critical for an animal’s ability to maximize and retain responsiveness to crucial odorants in its environment. The research, published in the March 25 issue of Neuron, finds that a molecular signaling pathway linked to neuronal survival in the central nervous system plays a significant role in odor-induced enhancement of olfactory cell survival.

It is well known that

A possible link between cancer and toxins or poisons produced by bacteria has been suggested by King’s College London scientists, the Society for General Microbiology’s meeting in Bath will hear next week, Thursday 01 April 2004.

“As the molecular mechanisms of cancer are becoming better understood, the strong association between Helicobacter pylori and a stomach cancer, gastric adenocarcinoma, has shown that some cancers may start from bacterial infections”, says Professor Alistair Lax

Initial vaccine tested in model looks promising

An experimental plague vaccine proved 100 percent effective when tested in a new mouse model for plague infection developed by scientists at Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML), part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health. The scientists developed their model to mimic the natural transmission route of bubonic plague through the bites of infected fleas. The flea-to-mouse mod

Dr. Tracey Sutton, a fish ecologist at the HARBOR BRANCH Oceanographic Institution in Ft. Pierce, Fla., has discovered a new species in a bizarre and elusive family of deep-sea predatory fish known collectively as dragonfish. The find, reported in the current issue of the journal Copeia, is the first new dragonfish species discovered in more than a decade.

The first specimen of the new species, dubbed Eustomias jimcraddocki, was large, compared to the average pencil-sized dragonfish at abou

In their first human studies of the feasibility of using brain signals to operate external devices, researchers at Duke University Medical Center report that arrays of electrodes can provide useable signals for controlling such devices. The research team is now working to develop prototype devices that may enable paralyzed people to operate “neuroprosthetic” and other external devices using only their brain signals.

While the new studies provide an initial proof of principle that human appl

Scientists at the University of Ulster are harnessing molecules produced naturally in the body to tackle one of the world’s major health problems – diabetes.

Their novel approach involves bioengineering gut peptides – molecules produced in the human intestine and released in response to feeding – to prolong their duration of action and, therefore, make them work more effectively.

The research by the internationally-recognised Diabetes Research Group at the University’s Coleraine c

It’s a bitter irony of cancer therapy: treatments powerful enough to kill tumor cells also harm healthy ones, causing side effects that diminish the quality of the lives that are saved.

Researchers at the University of Michigan’s Center for Biologic Nanotechnology hope to prevent that problem by developing “smart” drug delivery devices that will knock out cancer cells with lethal doses, leaving normal cells unharmed, and even reporting back on their success. A graduate student inv

Doctors are beginning the first test in the United States of a vaccine designed to protect people against one form of bird flu should an outbreak of the virus occur in humans. While the vaccine under study is not designed to protect against the precise bird-flu virus causing the current outbreak in poultry and in people, scientists will learn whether it protects against another strain of the virus that infects birds and people.

Physicians at the University of Rochester and Baylor College of

Two studies published in the March 24/31 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) look at the effect of medical treatment compared with hysterectomy on health-related quality of life for women with abnormal uterine bleeding.

According to background information in one of the articles, the Medicine or Surgery (Ms) randomized trial: “Hysterectomy [removal of the uterus] is the most common major surgical procedure performed in the United States for nonobstetric reasons. I

Findings could lead to effective new treatments for the disease

Researchers at the University at Buffalo and the Mayo Clinic have shown that chronic sinusitis is an immune disorder caused by fungus, opening up a promising new avenue for treating this ubiquitous and debilitating condition, for which there is no FDA-approved therapy.

Results of their research suggest that common airborne fungi lodge in the mucus lining of the sinuses in most people, but initiate an immune respo

The culprit behind mad cow disease, a.k.a. bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is the most infamous mammalian form of prions. Prions are misfolded proteins that are capable of growing, replicating, and being passed on to daughter cells – that is, they are by themselves heritable. Beyond their disease manifestation, prions also occur naturally in some organisms (such as yeast) and may play important roles in their growth and development. Now, Osherovich and colleagues have identified the amino acid seq