New research in monkeys may provide a clue about how the brain manages vast amounts of information and remembers what it needs. Researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center have identified brain cells that streamline and simplify sensory information – markedly reducing the brain’s workload.

The findings are reported in the on-line edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“When you need to remember people you’ve just met at a meeting,

Researchers have developed a method for scanning the entire human genome to successfully map the location of key gene regulators, mutated forms of which are known to cause type 2 diabetes. The research marks the first time that human organs, in this case the pancreas and liver, have been analyzed in this way and opens the door to similar studies of other organ systems and diseases.

The work, published in the Feb. 27 issue of the journal Science, could lead to new approaches for developing m

The combination of two drugs – both partly effective for rheumatoid arthritis patients when given individually – could be an important development in substantially reducing symptoms and joint destruction for people with rheumatoid arthritis, conclude authors of a study in this week’s issue of THE LANCET.

Rheumatoid arthritis affects around 1% of people worldwide. Etanercept and methotrexate are known to be effective in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis; however, no data exist on concurre

Stress is a well known culprit in disease, but now researchers have shown that stress can intensify the effects of relatively safe chemicals, making them very harmful to the brain and liver in animals and likely in humans, as well.

Even short-term exposure to specific chemicals — just 28 days — when combined with stress was enough to cause widespread cellular damage in the brain and liver of rats, said Mohamed Abou Donia, Ph.D., a Duke pharmacologist and senior author of the study.

Detecting and treating schizophrenia rapidly, following the onset of a first psychotic episode, improves the patients’ response to treatment, according to a study by a Yale researcher.

Thomas McGlashan, M.D., professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, said the length of time between the onset of psychosis and detection and treatment can stretch from several weeks to several years. This time span is a concern because the patient is sick and untreated and because there is some i

Scientists report that an unlikely molecule has emerged as an attractive target for development of therapeutics aimed at a diverse spectrum of tumors, including some malignancies that are resistant to conventional therapies. Two studies published online in Cancer Cell demonstrate that the insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF-1R) is required for the survival of tumor cells and provide direct evidence that inhibition of IGF-R1 using selective small molecules represents a novel potential anticance

The fight against antibiotic resistance could be aided by new 3D images of the final steps involved in manufacturing proteins in living cells, scientists reveal today in a letter to Nature.

By refining a technique known as cryo-electron microscopy, researchers from Imperial College London and CNRS-Inserm-Strasbourg University have determined how the enzyme RF3 helps prepare the protein-making factory for its next task following disconnection of the newly formed protein strand.

The t

Purdue scientists have made an important biological molecule “swing,” in work that might clarify the process by which proteins fold as well as lead to new approaches to drug development and computer memory.

Using lasers to initiate and probe the folding process, a group including chemist Timothy Zwier have precisely determined the energies needed to twist tryptamine, a molecule with several flexible “hinges” that bears a close resemblance to an amino acid, the basis of proteins. Understandin

Procedure requires no immune suppression drugs

An experimental cross-species transplant to treat diabetes has passed an early test in rats with better-than-expected results, suggesting the innovative approach might halt type 1 diabetes while greatly reducing the risk of rejection.

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis set up control and experimental groups of rats with diabetes. The experimental group received embryonic pig pancreas cell transpl

NHGRI-supported centers also to target more insects, worms and fungi

The Large-Scale Sequencing Research Network this year will begin sequencing the genomes of more than a dozen new model organisms, including the first marsupial to have its DNA deciphered. The research network, supported by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is part of an effort to further advance understanding of the human genome.

The effort

Provides new look at conservation of threatened coral species

An international research team has identified a family of corals found only in the Atlantic Ocean-a first for such classifications in that ocean-in a study that could transform how corals are viewed and classified. The scientists, who will publish their results in the Feb. 26 issue of the journal Nature, say the findings are also important for future decisions about coral conservation and the preservation of threatened biod

Scientists at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified a protein that blocks HIV replication in monkey cells. Humans have a similar protein, although it is not as effective at stopping HIV, say the researchers whose work is published in this week’s issue of Nature. The team, headed by Joseph Sodroski, M.D., is supported by the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

“Identification of this HIV-blocking factor opens new avenues for intervening in the ear

A single gene has been discovered that helps plants cope with stressful situations such as disease or poor environments – according to a report published in Nature, 26 February 2004.

Scientists at the universities of Bristol and Oxford isolated and characterised the gene called OXI1 from thale cress, a common roadside weed. OXI1 boosts the plant’s ability to stop fungal infection from spreading, and helps roots to grow despite poor conditions.

Dr Claire Grierson from Bristol

The secret of how flowering plants evolved into one of the Earth’s most dominant and diverse groups of organisms is revealed in study led by researchers from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Imperial College London.

Described by Charles Darwin as an “abominable mystery”, the team publish the first complete evolutionary ’super-tree’ of relationships among all families of flowering plants in current edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Using a combination

One of the methods for treating diseases that include cancer, arthritis and radiation sickness is challenged by new research by a team of scientists at University College London (UCL). The current orthodoxy on the role played by oxygen free radicals in the development of a number of diseases is called into question by the UCL team in a paper to be published in the 26th February edition of Nature, in research that may hold profound implications for the standard approach of the medical profession and p

Biomedical engineers at Lehigh University and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh probe causes of eustachian tube dysfunction in hopes of finding new treatments for ear infections

It will come as no surprise to parents that the most common illness among small children in America today is the middle-ear infection.

Each year, Americans spend $5 billion on ear infections. Doctors often prescribe two different antibiotics for the same infection. For more serious cases, they p