People who tend to experience psychological distress are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than people who are less prone to experience distress, according to a study published in the December 9 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

In the study, those who most often experience negative emotions like depression and anxiety were twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease as those who were least prone to experience negative emotions.

More than 40% of bacteria found in chicken on sale in Switzerland is resistant to at least one antibiotic, says research published this week in BMC Public Health. The findings could have implications for treating food poisoning.

The bacteria, Campylobacter, causes between 5 and 14 percent of all diarrhoeal illness worldwide. The most common sources of infection are inadequately cooked meat, particularly poultry, unpasteurised milk and contaminated drinking water. The illness normally clea

Vanderbilt University researchers believe a slow electrochemical wave, known as a damped wave, may be one of the reasons that low-voltage defibrillation shocks fail to halt fibrillation in cardiac patients.

The findings by Vanderbilt University researchers John Wikswo, Veniamin Sidorov, Rubin Aliev, Marcella Woods, Franz Baudenbacher and Petra Baudenbacher were published in the Nov. 14 issue of Physical Review Letters.

Fibrillation is a series of rapid, disorganized contractions i

Genetically engineered stem cells can find tumors and then produce biological killing agents right at the cancer site, say researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, who have performed a number of successful “proof of concept” experiments in mice.

Their novel treatment, presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), may offer the first gene therapy “delivery system” capable of homing in on and then attacking cancer that has metastasize

While the nation’s blood supply is safe overall and there is a relatively small likelihood that transfusion recipients will acquire a transmitted disease, there are still risks involved when transferring one person’s blood into another. The advent of new diseases, such as West Nile Virus (WNV), increases the need for further clinical vigilance and improved screening methods.

The blood supply is currently inspected in minipools with nucleic acid testing for HIV, hepatitis C virus (

The measurement of new genes at diagnosis in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), discovered through new technologies from the human genome project, may be highly predictive of therapeutic outcomes, according to a study presented today during the 45th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH). OPAL 1 (Outcome Predictor in Acute Leukemia 1), a novel, fully cloned human gene, and additional newly identified genes, have a strong predictive power to identify patients who may

Biophysicists at Stanford University have finally answered one of the most fundamental questions in molecular biology: How does the tiny motor molecule, known as kinesin, move across a living cell? According to the researchers, the solution to this longstanding problem will provide new insight into how motor proteins function, and may open new avenues of investigation for the treatment of cancer and various neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s.

The stud

In species-rich rainforests of the New World tropics most trees have broad geographic distributions–from Mexico to Bolivia and sometimes to the West Indies. Either they have excellent dispersal abilities, or they established broad ranges prior to the formation of present geographic barriers. In a study featured in American Naturalist, Christopher Dick, Kobinah Abdul-Salim and Eldredge Bermingham address these questions in the first phylogeographic study of a rainforest tree.

The morphology

The drug rituximab significantly prolonged the lives of some people with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), the most common form of leukemia in adult Americans.

The findings come from a comparative analysis of two completed national phase II and phase III clinical trials that will be presented Dec. 8, 8:00 a.m. PT, at the 45th annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) in San Diego, Calif.

The two multicenter clinical trials compare the antibody rituximab plus flud

With a slight tweak of temperature, geneticist Barry Ganetzky’s flies drop like, well, flies.

For 25 years, Ganetzky has been identifying, breeding and studying a raft of fly mutants that, when exposed to minor temperature change, become completely paralyzed. The flies, which quickly recover when returned to room temperature, are now finding many uses in studies of human neurological disorders, drug discovery and insecticide development.

Ganetzky, a University of Wisco

By studying how monkeys choose to look at lighted targets for juice rewards, neurobiologists have identified a still-mysterious region of the cerebral cortex as an area that judges the value of rewards, and adjusts that value as circumstances change.

The finding adds a significant piece to the puzzle of how the brain is wired to make judgments, perhaps even moral judgments, about the outside world, said the researchers. The findings may also have implications for understanding a number of

Authors of a UK study in this week’s issue of THE LANCET propose a new approach for cervical cancer screening. Testing for the human papilloma virus (HPV)-the main cause of cervical cancer-could be the primary screening tool, with cytology reserved for women who test positive for HPV.

HPV testing (by genetic analysis) of cervical smears is known to be more sensitive than conventional cytology for detecting pre-malignant cervical cells called high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN

A study led by Imperial College London has shown for the first time it is possible to help prevent organ rejection using a novel strategy that redirects the body’s immune response instead of suppressing it.

Writing in the Journal of Clinical Investigation today, researchers from the University of Cambridge, the University of Edinburgh, Lorantis Ltd and Imperial demonstrate that it is possible in mice to alter whether T white blood cells specialise to attack foreign tissue and thus cause reje

In a daring yet successful experiment to cure deadly brain tumors, researchers have combined the cancer-killing properties of poliovirus together with a harmless genetic coding element from the common cold.

The resulting modified virus created a remarkably strong anti-cancer agent that rapidly killed cancer cells in laboratory cell cultures and in animals — and without causing polio, said Matthias Gromeier, M.D., assistant professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at the Duke Compre

Device Allows Early Detection of Botulism Toxins and More Effective Treatment

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have developed a device that speeds the detection of a virulent strain of botulism neurotoxin from hours or days to minutes, making treatment or vaccination more effective.

Botulinum neurotoxin B, one of five strains that are known to be toxic to humans, is targeted in the paper that appeared in the Nov. 11 issue of the Proceedings of the Nat

Researchers at the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center have identified a protein that breast cancer tumors over-produce when they become resistant to the drug tamoxifen. The researchers said their finding could help them predict which tumors will benefit from tamoxifen — the front-line drug used to treat operable breast cancer — and which tumors won’t.

Future studies will be able to determine if tumors that over-produce this protein, called MTA-1, could be treated with a different hormonal