Dutch researcher Chris Molenaar has made the rapid movements of proteins, DNA and RNA molecules visible in living cells. With this technique researchers can study the dynamics of biomolecules in their natural environment.

Molenaar developed a method which makes it possible to follow the movements of RNA molecules in living cells. The researcher also made the movements and interactions between proteins in living cells visible with the aid of the revolutionary “Green Fluorescent Protein”.

A deadly form of cancer in children, which starts out as a tumor in the eye, can now be treated successfully by a combination of therapies. This is the conclusion of a study appearing in the June issue of Ophthalmology, the clinical journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the Eye M.D. Association.

Malignant retinal tumors in children, called retinoblastomas, which have spread to the bones, bone marrow and soft tissue can be successfully treated by a combination of high-dose chemot

Research by Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center specialists has uncovered a novel pathway in the origin of pancreatic cancers, one of the deadliest of malignancies. Their findings are reported in the June 23, 2003, issue of Cancer Cell.

Working with cancer cells from 55 patients, the Hopkins team found that a growth signal normally turned off in adult tissues is mistakenly turned back on after injury or inflammation of the pancreas. “We think reactivation may be a first step in initiating pa

Scientists studying the brains of mice have discovered how the toxic protein that destroys the brain cells of Alzheimer’s patients enters the brain. When the researchers gave mice a drug that blocked the process, flow of the protein into the brain was virtually halted and existing accumulations of it in the brain plummeted by more than 70 percent. The results of the research will be published in the July 1 issue of Nature Medicine.

The new findings center on amyloid beta, a tiny protei

Dutch researcher Patrick Vronen from Wageningen University has investigated several methods for converting toxins in high-starch potatoes into a raw material for steroid hormones used, for example, in contraceptive pills.

The molecular structure of the potato toxin solanidine, which is found in high-starch potatoes, is similar to that of diosgenine. Diosgenine is the current precursor for synthetic hormones. Patrick Vronen converted solanidine into dehydropregnenolone acetate (DPA). This su

DNA repair enzymes do a much better job of repairing damaged genes if they are facing in one direction instead of the other. This and other details of how DNA repair is performed are reported in the online version of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers at Washington State University and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

According to the new study, the repair enzymes “distinguish” between various positions and may be two to three

The epidemic of HIV/AIDS in India is following the same pattern as that of sub-Saharan Africa in the 1980s, and it could become just as devastating unless preventive action is taken now, according to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, in a paper to be published Saturday (June 21) in the British Medical Journal.

“In hindsight, opportunities were missed to stem the explosive growth of AIDS in Africa,” says Dr. Malcolm Potts, professor of population and family planning at

The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)

The outlook for patients with advanced rectal cancer is looking more promising with a new treatment approach developed by Professor Andres Cervantes’ team in Spain. The results of a trial of chemo-radiation followed by surgery were presented at the European Society of Medical Oncology’s conference in Edinburgh today (20 June), demonstrating how to prevent a recurrence of the cancer.

Rectal cancer is a very difficult c

An emerging species of yeast, Candida parapsilosis is causing increasing numbers of infections because it spreads easily from medical devices into the blood stream of patients. Science Foundation Ireland has recently awarded almost €1 million to Dr. Geraldine Butler of the Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research, Dublin for her pioneering studies of this yeast.

As the yeast grows on the plastic surface of catheters, heart valves or intravenous lines, it forms a thin film ca

A collaboration of scientists mainly from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and at the University of Washington (Seattle) has made an important discovery linking the powerful cancer-causing oncogene, myc, with the gene behind the premature aging disease, Werner syndrome. Their finding reveals that the MYC oncoprotein turns-on Werner syndrome gene expression, and posits the Werner syndrome gene as a potentially important participant in MYC-induced tumorigenesis.

Werner syndrome is a rare gen

Physicians at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital are using a new technology to treat patients with brain aneurysms. Matrix© coils provide better stabilization of the aneurysms and promote faster healing of the lesion. So far, two patients have received the Matrix© coil treatment at the MNI/H. The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital is one of three centres in Canada chosen to use the new Matrix© coil. The others are Toronto Western and Foothills Hospital in Calg

Protein could provide clues for understanding type two diabetes

Along the multifaceted insulin pathway, Dartmouth Medical School biochemists have found a missing link that may spark the connection for glucose to move into cells. The discovery is another strand in the remarkable web of molecular signals that regulate traffic through cells and helps elucidate crucial aspects of how the hormone insulin regulates a membrane movement process.

The work is being discussed June 21 at

Researchers at the Fritz-Haber Institute in Berlin have recently discovered chemical-thermal-mechanical oscillations that show, indirectly, the rate of certain reactions.

The pattern formation of a catalytic surface reaction is influenced by the temperature at which the reaction takes place. If the temperature of the surface is changed, then the course of the chemical processes changes as well. In extreme cases this change can lead to front formation, i.e. patterns, or, for example,

Animal Models Offer Newborn Opportunity to Permanently Rescue Insulin-making Cells and Possibly Even Protect Against Future Onset

A common condition that leads to low birthweight babies may predispose the infants to obesity and diabetes later in life by denying cells in the pancreas access to the chemical signals they need to mature, according to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Moreover, the condition, which they have successfully modeled in rodents

After seven years of work, researchers have succeeded in deducing the three-dimensional structure of an elusive and complex protein enzyme that is central to regulating the body’s largest family of receptors. These receptors, called G-protein-coupled receptors, nestle in the cell membrane and respond to external chemical signals such as hormones and neurotransmitters, to switch on cell machinery.

The thousands of such receptors throughout the body play a fundamental role in the mechan

People who brush their teeth for longer and harder than is necessary may not be making them any cleaner, and could be causing permanent damage, according to new research.

A study using electric toothbrushes by the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, found that when researchers increased the length of people’s brushing regime and the pressure they applied to their teeth, the removal of harmful bacteria was only improved up to a point.

Beyond that point, say experts from Newcastl