How infants respond to their mother’s touches and smiles influences their development in a manner much like what young birds experience when learning to sing, according to a research project involving the Department of Psychology at Indiana University Bloomington and the Biological Foundations of Behavior program at Franklin and Marshall College.

An article on the research, titled “Social interaction shapes babbling: Testing parallels between birdsong and speech,” will be published this wee

Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have determined that a protein essential for the normal embryonic development of fruit flies is also used by mammals to assist in the timely healing of cuts and lacerations.

Their discovery, detailed in the June 3 issue of the journal Developmental Cell, provides new insight for scientists into the molecular mechanisms responsible for wound healing in humans and may one day lead to the design of new drugs for individuals whose healing is

A group of researchers from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) have identified a small chemical molecule that controls the fate of embryonic stem cells.

“We found molecules that can direct the embryonic stem cells to [become] neurons,” says Sheng Ding, who recently completed his Ph.D. work at TSRI and is becoming an assistant professor in the chemistry department. Ding is the lead author on the study, which is described

Authors of a study published on THE LANCET’S website today (www.thelancet.com) highlight how statins (cholesterol-lowering drugs) could offer protection against cardiovascular disease for people who have undergone kidney transplantation.

Kidney-transplant patients are at an increased risk of premature cardiovascular disease; many transplant recipients have pre-existing cardiovascular disease at the time of transplantation and immunosuppressive therapy may aggravate existing risk factors or p

Patients with cancer of the larynx are likely to retain their voice and avoid surgery if they are treated simultaneously with chemotherapy and radiotherapy, say investigators who have conducted a nationwide study.

The findings are so significant they should become the new standard of care for stage III and IV laryngeal cancer, says one of the study’s lead investigators, Moshe Maor, M.D., professor of radiation oncology at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

New findings from the Lung Health Study (LHS) indicate that, in general, women’s lung function improves significantly more than men’s after sustained smoking cessation. LHS researchers previously published results showing that both men and women benefit from smoking cessation; this new analysis indicates that the benefits to the lungs are greater in women than in men. The results are published in the June 1 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Supported by the National H

University of Pittsburgh researchers report results in American Journal of Transplantation and at American Transplant Congress, suggesting blood test to determine who can be weaned not far off

Liver transplant patients who are off all immunosuppression and those who are undergoing withdrawal of their anti-rejection drugs have higher concentrations of a special immune system cell than those patients who have failed attempts at weaning or who have a history of organ rejection, report Un

In patients with metastatic breast cancer, immune cells from a genetically matched donor can attack and shrink tumors, researchers from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) announced today at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago. This is the first time researchers have clearly demonstrated this type of immune response, known as a graft-versus-tumor effect, acting against breast cancer.
“Graft-versus-tumor effects have been shown to be useful in treating cance

Currently, there is no vaccine available that is able to cure cancer. The success of an antitumor vaccine will depend on its ability to induce robust and sustained tumor-specific immune responses. There is evidence to suggest that antitumor vaccination can induce such responses and even tumor regression. However, to date these regressions have not been long-lasting. Researchers at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Switzerland have developed a lentiviral vaccine which following injection int

By combining genes from three separate organisms into a single bacterial factory, University of California, Berkeley, chemical engineers have developed a simpler, less expensive way to make an antimalaria “miracle” drug that is urgently needed in Third World countries.

The drug, artemisinin, is one of the most promising next-generation antimalarials because of its effectiveness against strains of the malaria parasite now resistant to front-line drugs. It is now too expensive for broad use i

Scientists from the RIKEN Tsukuba Institute (Japan) have developed a valuable new experimental system for tissue-specific RNAi knockdown in mammalian cells and organisms – a discovery that will markedly advance the functional characterization of genes involved in development and disease.

Discovered in the late nineties, RNA intereference (RNAi) refers to the introduction of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) into a cell, where it induces the degradation of complementary mRNA, and thereby suppresse

What if there were a magical chamber that could divulge the secrets of anything that was placed inside of it? Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has developed such a chamber—and while it won’t divulge all secrets, it discloses key information about chemicals and compounds.

That information may be useful in addressing a wide range of issues that affect the environment and quality of life—everything from sick building syndrome and industrial emissions monitoring and control to sensor testi

As more is learned about how cancer develops, scientists have begun designing new drugs that directly target cancer cells, leaving healthy ones intact. Having fewer side effects, some of these drugs work by blocking growth signaling processes within cancer cells, while others enlist the body’s immune system to recognize and mount an attack against the cancer cell. But regardless of how they work, most of these drugs are designed to treat a specific cancer and cannot be used to treat other tumor type

An experimental cancer drug named bevacizumab (trade name Avastin) is the first “anti-angiogenesis” drug to prove that it can shrink tumors and extend survival in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, according to a national clinical trial led by researchers at the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Bevacizumab is known as an anti-angiogenesis drug because it blocks the formation of blood vessels in tumors (a process called angiogenesis) and thus inhibits their growth.

Patien

Researchers at the Breast Care Center at Baylor College of Medicine and The Methodist Hospital have developed a new test to predict which breast cancer tumors will respond to chemotherapy, potentially reducing unnecessary treatment for women with breast cancer, according to data presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago.

Using novel DNA array technology, the study identified differences in the gene patterns from tumor samples that predict which patients

Study results presented at the 39th annual meeting for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) by Chandra P. Belani, M.D., professor of medicine, University of Pittsburgh and co-director, Lung Cancer Program, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI), demonstrate that a new therapeutic radiation strategy for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) – the most common form of the disease – leads to improved survival for lung cancer patients with locally advanced disease.

n the study