An article in Journal of Physics B, published on 7 July 2003 by the Institute of Physics, reports on a new technique which could in future help scientists working in rational drug design (a way of tailoring a new drug to fit the structure of the protein it targets) to develop drugs more efficiently. The work, which was on a molecule called stella-2,6-dione, was a collaboration between colleagues at three Australian universities (Flinders, Swinburne and ANU), the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial

HRT could be used to protect younger postmenopausal women from heart disease. An article published in the journal Lipids in Health and Disease shows that estrogens commonly used in HRT reduce the build up of harmful oxidised lipoproteins, which can lead to heart disease, by acting as antioxidants.

It is well known that high-density lipoproteins (HDL) protect against heart disease while low-density lipoproteins (LDL) promote it. However, recent research has shown that the relationship is not

Rats with severe strokes recovered function following intravenous injections of stem-like cells obtained from circulating human blood — a finding that points to another potential cell therapy for stroke.

The study, by researchers at the University of South Florida Center for Aging and Brain Repair, appears in today’s issue of the journal Cell Transplantation.

The human blood donors were injected with granulocyte stimulating factor (G-CSF) to stimulate the release of stem-like c

Scientists used a stimulation technique to improve the sensitivity of people’s fingertips, and then gave them drugs that either doubled or deleted this effect. Similar skin stimulation/drug treatment combinations may eventually help the elderly or stroke victims button shirts and aid professional pianists according to the authors of a paper appearing in the 04 July issue of the journal Science, published by AAAS, the science society.

Finger stimulations and drugs can temporarily reorgan

A lot of people suffer from herpes for all their lives. The herpes simplex virus (Type 1) constantly inhabits the organism revealing its presence from time to time. Once highly active anti- herpes drugs were developed (acyclovir and phosofonoacetic acids), the virus responded with new forms resistant to theses drugs. The Belorus researchers from the State Scientific Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, Ministry of Health, Republic of Belorus, and the Institute of Photobiology, Nationa

An exotic species or weed trying to establish itself in a new ecosystem will have a harder time if it encounters a diverse mix of resident species rather than just a few species, according to research at the University of Minnesota. Working with prairie plants, the research team found that a rich assemblage of species repels invaders because it is more likely to contain plants occupying a niche similar to what the invader needs, as well as plants that make good all-around competitors. The findings ha

Saltiness often enhances our enjoyment of certain foods — think French fries or a Margarita. But salt is an essential nutrient for humans and other animals, and far from being a trivial matter of taste, the ability to detect salt is critical for survival. A University of Iowa study provides insight on how humans and other animals are able to detect salt. The study appears in the July 3 issue of Neuron.

“Given that salt is essential for survival, it is not surprising that animals have devel

An increasing number of doctors and other health experts have been encouraging older adults to rise from their recliners and go for a walk, a bike ride, a swim, or engage in just about any other form of physical activity as a defense against the potentially harmful health consequences of a sedentary lifestyle.

“Exercise is touted as a panacea for older adults,” said Jeffrey Woods, a kinesiology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who noted that fitness programs are

A Los Alamos National Laboratory researcher and her colleagues have found that people with less common types of proteins on their white blood cells seem to mount a better immune response against the Human Immunodeficiency Virus – the virus that causes AIDS – and tend to fight progression of the disease better than people with common white blood cell proteins.

The research, presented in the July issue of Nature Medicine, eventually might help researchers better understand and exploit potenti

Discovery offers ‘new hope to patients by paving the way for future therapies that will change the course of hepatitis’

A protein molecule that contributes to the severity of chronic viral hepatitis in humans, and which may also be implicated in SARS, has been identified by a team of scientists from Toronto General and St. Michael’s Hospitals. This data is published in the July 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

The protein, called Fgl2/fibroleukin prothr

A study published today by Glasgow University scientists shows that finches given a poor diet briefly in early life become adults that can’t cope with ageing. Birds that had a low quality diet for just two weeks grew into adults with much lower levels of antioxidants in their blood, and such birds have shorter lives.

Antioxidants are a key part of the body’s defences against ageing; they reduce the damage caused by free radicals that are produced during normal metabolism. Animals cannot make

Salk scientists have defined a new pathway that controls how plants flower in response to shaded, crowded conditions, and their findings may have implications for increasing yield in crops ranging from rice to wheat.

The study, published in the June 19 issue of Nature, was led by Salk professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Joanne Chory and Salk/Howard Hughes Medical Institute postdoctoral fellow Pablo Cerdán. “The mechanism that leads to plants flowering early in respons

While picking apart the genetic makeup of the plant Arabidopsis, two Dartmouth researchers made a startling discovery. They found that approximately 36 percent of its genome is potentially regulated by the circadian clock, which is three and a half times more than had previously been estimated.

The study, which appears in the June issue of Plant Physiology, was conducted by C. Robertson McClung, Dartmouth professor of biological sciences, and Todd Michael, a former Dartmouth graduate studen

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have completed the first survey of the entire human genome for genes that affect the susceptibility of individuals to developing clinical depression.

George S. Zubenko, M.D., Ph.D., professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and adjunct professor of biological sciences at Carnegie Mellon University and his team have located a number of chromosomal regions they say hold the genetic keys to a variety of mental illness

Scientists believe that they are an important step nearer to success in creating an artificial egg from the combination of the nucleus of a somatic cell and an oocyte which has had its DNA-carrying nucleus removed, a conference of international fertility experts heard today (Tuesday 1 July).

Dr Peter Nagy, from Reproductive Biology Associates, Atlanta, collaborating with the University of Connecticut, USA, told the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology annual conference that

As premature infants often have under-developed lungs, oxygen is administered following birth. One devastating side effect, however, is the development of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), whereupon oxygen administration to the infant suppresses the expression of essential growth factors that promote the development of retinal blood vessels, resulting in blindness. In the July 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, a study by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospit