An international study has found that maintenance therapy with the drug infliximab, a monoclonal antibody used to treat Crohn’s disease, can prevent or delay the recurrence of fistulas, a common complication of that inflammatory bowel disorder. As reported in the February 26 New England Journal of Medicine, patients receiving infliximab on a regular basis were twice as likely to avoid fistula recurrence than were patients receiving a placebo.

The study was largely supported by the phar

A revolutionary device that could protect asthmatics from stifling air pollution has gone on show at the Science Museum. in London.

The PUREbreathe, a plastic device containing high tech filters to be worn in the mouth, has been unveiled as one of the star exhibits in the Science of Sport exhibition, the Science Museum’s latest blockbuster exploring the world of sport [which opened on Friday, February 13].

Sport scientist Dr Alison McConnell a researcher at Brunel University, in Ux

Since small RNA molecules were discovered just over ten years ago, it has become clear that these once overlooked bits of genetic material play a decidedly large role in controlling gene expression and thus regulating a diverse array of cellular processes. They typically accomplish these tasks by targeting specific nucleotide sequences to shut down gene expression, and scientists are now starting to apply related strategies to inactivate specific genes for research and therapeutic purposes (see rela

Regulation of gene expression–deciding how much of what proteins are produced in the cell–is controlled by a myriad of different molecules. One type of naturally occurring regulatory molecule is small interfering RNA (siRNA), which selectively disrupts the production of a protein it is programmed to recognize, a process called RNA interference. These short stretches of nucleotides combine with other cellular proteins to form an RNA-induced silencing complex, called RISC, which locates and destroys

Depression is the most prevalent psychiatric disease. The number of new cases rises and the disease manifests itself at an earlier age.

Depression is lower in populations with higher fish consumption. This leads to the question whether there might be something in fish that prevents depression or more general that is required for proper functioning of the brain.

Fats are major structural components of brain tissue. These fats are special in that they contain DHA. DHA is a fatt

Treatment prevents later-stage tissue loss contributing to long-term injury

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Children’s Hospital Boston (CHB) have found that a commonly prescribed antibiotic could be used to help prevent paralysis and other long-term functional deficits associated with a partial spinal cord injury (SCI). Researchers in the field have known that a significant proportion of paralysis and long-term functional disorders associated with SCI a

Development of lymphoma in mice missing CBP gene occurs in cooperation with reduction of p27Kip1 protein level—despite the presence of the anti-cancer gene p53

Inactivation of the gene CBP in certain immature white blood cells of mice causes lymphoma, a type of cancer also found in humans. The cancer is accompanied by changes in the expression of specific genes associated with development of the disease. These findings, from researchers at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital an

The University of California, Santa Barbara announced today that it has donated all rights to a patent that covers the novel use of an established class of cardiovascular medicines as a potential new drug against a global parasitic disease. The Institute for OneWorld Health, a nonprofit pharmaceutical company based in San Francisco, will use the UCSB discovery and the wealth of data associated with the medicines to accelerate drug development for treatment of schistosomiasis.

Two UCSB resear

A small pilot study funded by the National Institutes of Health suggests that women who undergo hormone-replacement therapy (HRT) may run the risk of diminished hearing. Depending on the measure, HRT recipients on average did anywhere from 10 to 30 percent worse on hearing tests than women who had not received HRT, says Robert D. Frisina, Ph.D., professor of Otolaryngology at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Frisina and colleagues from the International Center for Hearing and Spe

With the slim chance that farmers will stop planting crops containing genes from other organisms, researchers have started to develop strategies that trap these foreign genes, reducing the risk that they’ll spread to wild relatives.

But an investigation by scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Minnesota-St. Paul shows that these containment strategies can quickly fail.

Using mathematical models, the team of scientists explored the effective

Transgenic mouse shows other intriguing physiological changes

A transgenic mouse designed to grow more hair than other mice has provided University of Southern California researchers with some surprising results-and insight into the development and regulation of growth in epithelial organs that extend beyond skin and hair.

In an upcoming paper in the American Journal of Pathology—now available online—Cheng-Ming Chuong, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pathology at the Keck School o

Better drugs, improved industrial applications and even cleaner laundry may be possible with a new computer method to predict which hybrid enzymes are likely to have high activity, according to a team of Penn State chemists and chemical engineers.

“FamClash is quite successful at qualitatively predicting the pattern of the specific activity of the hybrids,” the researchers report in this week’s online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “By identifying incompat

Scientists at Jefferson Medical College and Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center have discovered one part of the mechanism behind a popular anti-cholesterol drug.

Steven Farber, Ph.D., assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Eric Smart, Ph.D., at the University of Kentucky and their co-workers have found that treating hypercholesterolemic mice with the drug ezetimibe (Zetia) disrupts a complex of two pro

Mayo Clinic researchers discover that key cancer gene cbp doesn’t work alone; Important clue to targeting new treatments for lymphoma, breast and colon cancers

Mayo Clinic cancer researchers have discovered a key partnership between two genes in mice that prevents the development of cancer of the lymph nodes, known as T-cell leukemia or lymphoma.

This first-time finding provides researchers with a promising target for designing new anti-cancer drugs that fight lymphomas,

Physicians may not need to prescribe antibiotics when treating a common skin infection in children, according to researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

The findings, which appear in the February issue of The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, show draining a skin or soft-tissue abscess – a pus-filled boil – and packing the wound with gauze is adequate therapy for simple skin abscesses. Patients still need to seek medical attention for these boils even though they may no

A new study by researchers at San Francisco VA Medical Center (SFVAMC) moves in on the physiological basis for the bone density loss experienced by people subjected to prolonged periods of bed rest and by astronauts who fly lengthy missions under the weightless conditions of space.

The work, conducted in rats, is an important step toward developing therapies to prevent such bone loss, says senior author Daniel Bikle, MD, co-director of the Special Diagnostic and Treatment Unit at SFVAMC and