Treatment for the most common inherited cause of blindness, retinitis pigmentosa, is one step closer, according to investigators at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC). They are the first to link two new gene mutations in two French-Canadian families to loss of vision in humans. Their findings are published in this month’s issue of the American Journal of Ophthalmology. This project was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), le Fonds de la

The researcher who discovered the active form of Vitamin D, Dr. Michael F. Holick, a Professor of Medicine, Dermatology, Physiology and Biophysics at the Boston University School of Medicine, told the National Institutes of Health’s symposium on “Vitamin D and Health in the 21st Century” that the nation faces “severe Vitamin D deficiency” which, if not properly addressed, will have profound far reaching health consequences such as hundreds of thousands of new cases of breast cancer, colon cancer

Concerns about the ethics of using embryos created to treat infertile couples for stem cell research is discussed by researchers at St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester in this week’s BMJ.

Although the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 allows the creation of embryos for research in the United Kingdom, the House of Lords Select Committee on stem cell research reported in February 2002 that embryos should not be created unless there is a demonstrable and exceptional need that cannot be met

Imagining movement of arms and legs that have been weakened from stroke may facilitate functional recovery of affected limbs, a Northwestern University study has found.

The effects of stroke vary, based on the type of stroke and its severity and location in the brain. The majority of strokes affect one of the brain’s hemispheres, resulting in muscle weakness or paralysis on the opposite side of the body — a condition known as hemiparesis.

Jennifer A. Stevens and co-researche

Researchers have demonstrated that Methotrexate, a promising drug to treat hearing loss in patients with autoimmune inner ear disease (AIED), proved no more effective than placebo in a recently concluded four-year study.

In findings published in the October 8, 2003 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), a team headed by University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Professor and Chief of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Jeffrey Harris, M.D., also noted that the s

Vanderbilt is one of nine US sites

Vanderbilt University Medical Center is participating in worldwide tests of a potential vaccine that can stimulate important immune responses against the virus that causes AIDS.

This is the first candidate vaccine against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to be studied simultaneously in so many locations, from Brazil to Thailand, according to Merck & Co. Inc., which developed the vaccine.

Vanderbilt currently is testing six p

Discovery could lead to development of protein-targeting drugs, OHSU researchers say

When HIV enters the human body, a fierce battle ensues between a ruthless viral protein and our long-misunderstood innate protection system. Ultimately, the protein seizes and destroys that system, and HIV replicates.

But Oregon Health & Science University researchers who discovered the mechanism by which this destruction occurs say our innate protection system could have a leg up in the mêl

The thymus, a once overlooked glandular structure just behind the top of the sternum, has gained increasing attention from scientists in the past two decades because it is where disease-fighting T-cells mature.

Especially in AIDS patients, T-cell count is a relative indicator of the body’s ability to fight disease. Until recently, however, researchers have understood little about how T-cells are generated.

Now, thanks to what a researcher at the University of Georgia calls a

Humans Share DNA That Helps Mice Move Ears, Eyes, Whiskers

University of Utah researchers have identified genes that ensure nerves develop in the correct part of the brain so mice can roll their eyeballs sideways, wiggle their whiskers, pull their ears back and blink their eyelids. The genes are common to all mammals, and so they likely help control human facial expressions such as smiles and frowns.

“In this study we looked at what nerves are made in a particular part of th

Could help improve treatment of anxiety

Behavior therapists may have a better way to help anxious patients, thanks to insights from a UCLA study of different ways to get mice past their fears. Rodents have long been used to study learning by association. Neuroscientists compared different ways of exposing mice to a stimulus that they had learned to fear, and found that “massing” the feared stimulus -– delivering it in concentrated bursts, not pacing it with longer pauses in between –

Duke University Medical Center researchers have linked elevated levels of a specific heart protein in elderly hearts to a decrease in the pumping ability of the heart.

Since levels of this protein, known as G-alpha-i, are also elevated in patients with congestive heart failure, the researchers believe that not only do they better understand why the heart’s pumping ability decreases with age, but that there may be a pharmacological approach to prevent this age-related decline.

Duke University Medical Center researchers have linked elevated levels of a specific heart protein in elderly hearts to a decrease in the pumping ability of the heart.

Since levels of this protein, known as G-alpha-i, are also elevated in patients with congestive heart failure, the researchers believe that not only do they better understand why the heart’s pumping ability decreases with age, but that there may be a pharmacological approach to prevent this age-related decline.

A complete molecular-scale picture of how plants convert sunlight to chemical energy has been obtained at Purdue University, offering potential new insights into animal metabolism as well.

Using advanced imaging techniques, a team of Purdue biologists has determined the structure of the cytochrome, a protein complex that governs photosynthesis in a blue-green bacterium. While their work does not immediately suggest any industrial applications, it does reveal a wealth of information not onl

Electrical signals from nerves in the brain cause weak magnetic fields which can be measured by means of magnetoencephalography (MEG). A project supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) has investigated the extent to which direct measurement of neural electrical activity can be coupled with MEG to diagnose and treat epilepsy. The findings are important in view of today’s spiralling health care costs, as the apparatus used to detect magnetic fields in the brain is 30 times as expensive as that us

An expert at the University of Sheffield has published a paper that dispels the popular belief that Louis Pasteur was the first person to demonstrate the connection between infective agents and disease in the 1860s.

Dr. Milton Wainwright’s research, published in Advances in Applied Microbiology, has uncovered various references that suggest that Greek and Italian physicians had made the link between bacteria and disease before the birth of Christ. He also found that Louis Pasteur wasn’t eve

Saint Louis University study suggests protein can´t cross blood brain barrier
ST. LOUIS — Alzheimer´s disease may be caused by a problem transporting a certain protein across the blood brain barrier and out of the brain, according to new Saint Louis University research published in the October issue of Neuroscience.

The findings are important, says William A. Banks, M.D., a Saint Louis University professor and the lead author of the article, because they give us a new approach for treat