A protein released from the lungs of a developing mouse fetus initiates a cascade of chemical events leading to the mother’s initiation of labor, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have found.

The research, which has implications for humans, marks the first time a link between a specific fetal lung protein and labor has been identified, said Dr. Carole Mendelson, professor of biochemistry and obstetrics and gynecology and senior author of the study. The paper appear

Scientists studying the elusive western gorilla observed that neighboring social groups have surprisingly peaceful interactions, in contrast to the aggressive male behavior well documented in mountain gorillas. By analyzing the DNA from fecal and hair samples of the western gorilla, scientists uncovered evidence that these neighboring social groups are often led by genetically related males. These findings suggest connections between genetic relationships and group interactions, parallels with human

System for guiding cell migration, adhesion has biomedical and regenerative medical applications

Scientists at the University of Toronto are taking regenerative medicine to a new dimension with a process for guiding nerve cells that could someday help reconnect severed nerve endings.

Molly Shoichet, a professor of chemical engineering and applied chemistry at the Institute for Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (IBBME), has devised a new method that helps guide cell mi

Patients who are taking statins, the cholesterol-lowering drugs, before they suffer a stroke leave hospital in a better state, according to research published in BMC Medicine this week. As statin use is on the increase, perhaps suffering a stroke may no longer have such serious consequences for many people. Taking statins protects people against heart disease and stroke. This has prompted physicians to prescribe statins to people at high risk of these conditions. The researchers found that “

Researchers suggest today that we should increase our vitamin D intake, as they reveal the results of a breast cancer study.

Results from a new study show for the first time how improved vitamin D levels in women could prevent breast cancer. Previously it was thought that the active form of the vitamin, calcitriol, which is a potent anti-cancer agent, was only made in the kidney. These researchers have discovered that breast tissue also contains the enzyme that activates vitamin D, and leve

Air travel, increasing urbanization and modern farming practices are all helping to spread deadly virus diseases carried by blood-sucking mosquitoes and ticks, according to scientists from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology at Oxford, speaking on Thursday, 01 April 2004, at the Society for General Microbiology’s meeting in Bath.

The Oxford scientists describe how West Nile virus probably arrived in New York in 1999, and how it rapidly spread across North America killing people and tho

While condom use remains the most effective protection against sexual transmission of HIV, it is clear that in many parts of the world women are not empowered to insist on it.

The urgent need for novel strategies to block HIV-1 transmission is being recognised by an Europe-wide consortium, the European Microbicides Project (EMPRO) led by King’s College London and funded by the European Commission.

The project aims to develop new products, called microbicides, containing molecules

Scientists at The Hospital for Sick Children (Sick Kids), the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and the University of Toronto (U of T) have identified an alternate form of the disease gene and protein for the neurodevelopmental condition Rett syndrome. This discovery is being incorporated into a new molecular test that will aid not only in the diagnosis of Rett syndrome, but also for other developmental disabilities. This research is reported in the April issue of the scientific journal N

Penn State College of Medicine researchers have developed a tiny package that searches for and destroys up to 80 percent of hepatitis B virus in the livers of mice.

“This marks one of the few successful in vivo, or in-animal, models of an effective therapy to reduce the production of hepatitis B virus,” said Gary Clawson, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pathology, biochemistry and molecular biology, Penn State College of Medicine. “Although this work focused on hepatitis B virus, our method of tar

Giving older patients antibiotics within four hours of their arrival at a hospital for treatment of pneumonia reduces the length of hospital stay, and may reduce the chances of dying, according to an article in the March 22 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

According to the article, pneumonia is the second leading reason for hospitalization among Medicare beneficiaries, accounting for more than 600,000 Medicare hospitalizations yearly, and is the

A new research study sheds light on how cancer cells manage to evade the immune system despite the presence of tumor-specific immune cells. The researchers found that mouse and human melanoma cells secrete galectin-1, which has a negative impact on the survival of T cells, and that inhibition of Gal-1 dramatically reduces tumor formation in mice. The research has exciting implications for future anticancer therapies that may stimulate an effective immune response against tumor cells.

Tumor

A novel application of microarray technology, where up to 30,000 whole genomes are printed on a single slide, is described in the journal BMC Microbiology this week. The ‘Library on a Slide’ will help researchers compare the genetic make up of large numbers of bacterial strains to discover which genes are responsible for causing disease.

Even within one species of bacteria, the genetic content can vary by as much as 25% between individual strains. These differences can determine how virulent

Researchers at the Center for Biomedical Inventions at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have identified the genetic changes that Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes tuberculosis, undergoes during infection of a living host.

For the first time, researchers have adapted gene-chip technology to carry out genomic analysis of gene expression during the course of infection not only for M. tuberculosis, but for any pathogen. The findings will appear in an upcoming issue

Two studies published in the online issue of Nature report no evidence to suggest that hematopoietic stem cells, which usually produce blood cells, can turn into heart cells after injection into the heart. These studies raise a cautionary note for interpreting the results of ongoing clinical studies in which hematopoietic stem cells are injected into the heart after a heart attack.

Loren Field, Ph.D., professor of medicine and of pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine and s

Discovery of the sequence of events in the binding of p27 to a protein complex is a model for explaining how 30 to 40 percent of the body’s proteins exploit their flexibility in order to do different tasks in the cell

Investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have demonstrated for the first time that–contrary to the long-held belief among scientists that proteins must maintain a rigid structure in order to perform an assigned task–many proteins actually exploit dis

USC study finds meat-tolerant genes offset high cholesterol and disease

When our human ancestors started eating meat, evolution served up a healthy bonus – the development of genes that offset high cholesterol and chronic diseases associated with a meat-rich diet, according to a new USC study.

Those ancestors also started living longer than ever before – an unexpected evolutionary twist.

The research by USC professors Caleb Finch and Craig Stanford appears in Wedne