Center for Behavioral Neuroscience (CBN) researchers have demonstrated that genetically identical mice placed in different environments both pre- and post-natally differ dramatically as adults in their stress responses and learning abilities. The finding, reported in the May issue of Nature Neuroscience, suggests that pre- and post-natal maternal environments, when taken together, play a strong role in determining the stress profile and cognitive development of genetically identical mice.

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Investigators at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) have identified a gene that regulates the susceptibility to tuberculosis. This finding is published in this week’s edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Tuberculosis, an infectious disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis, affects approximately 1.9 billion people worldwide. However, a large proportion of these individuals do not develop tuberculosis symptoms. The

A team of radiologists and orthopedic specialists at Johns Hopkins Medicine has successfully used heat generated by electrode-tipped probes to destroy painful, benign bone tumors in eight of nine patients in a clinical study.

The results of the study, published in the March issue of the Journal of Vascular Interventional Radiology, suggests a need for further research to confirm the effectiveness of percutaneous radiofrequency for treating osteoid osteomas.

In the study, all eight

Genes found on region of Chromosome 1 may regulate behaviors including eating and anxiety

Anorexia nervosa is a serious and potentially lethal illness. It is characterized by the relentless pursuit of thinness, the obsessive fear of gaining weight and emaciation. It commonly begins during adolescence in girls and it runs in families. A number of traits, such as perfectionism, anxiety and obsessionality, contribute to a risk to develop anorexia.

The authors used a process cal

In the race to stay one step ahead of drug-resistant bacteria, scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley obtained high-resolution images of a protein complex found in bacteria that repels a wide range of antibiotics.

The images, which appear in the May 9 issue of Science, offer new insight into how bacteria survive attacks from different antibiotics, a growing health problem called multidrug resistance. As the team learned, these robu

Because they are able to recognize a particular cell marker — a protein — antibodies are generally used to identify abnormal cells in the body. As such, they play a key role in diagnosis, treatment and basic research.

At the Institut Curie, CNRS research scientists have recently prepared a new type of antibody which for the first time combines several crucial features: it can be produced in a few days, it can be expressed directly in cells, and it is, moreover, sensitive to the shape of pro

Tiny protein targets Bax, inhibits apoptosis

Researchers at The Burnham Institute have found that humanin, a small, 24-amino acid protein recently discovered in studies of Alzheimer’s Disease, suppresses activation of the protein Bax. Bax triggers pathologic cell death in a number of diseases, including Parkinson’s, stroke, heart attack and degeneration of ovaries during menopause. These results, to be published later this month in the journal Nature (currently available at the journa

Prions—their existence is intriguing and their links to disease are unsettling. These unconventional infectious agents are involved in mad cow disease and other fatal brain illnesses in humans and animals, rattling prior assumptions about the spread of infections.

Dartmouth Medical School biochemists studying the mysteries of these prion particles have discovered a novel step in their formation. Their results, reported in a recent issue of Biochemistry could help provide a new approach for

Regulating cells under stress

An article published this week in the journal Nature provides the first experimental evidence for an unusual molecular bonding mechanism that could explain how certain cells adhere to surfaces such as blood vessel walls under conditions of mechanical stress.
Known as “catch bonds,” the adhesion mechanism displays surprising behavior, prolonging rather than shortening the lifetimes of bonds between specific molecules as increasing force is applied. Pr

One-year results presented at annual ophthalmology meeting

Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, its Doheny Retina Institute and Second Sight, LLC, are reporting on the initial results of their groundbreaking, FDA-approved feasibility trial of an intraocular retinal prosthesis that appears to be able to restore some degree of sight to the blind.

“We have successfully completed enrollment and implantation of three patients in t

Dartmouth researchers have found evidence of two circadian clocks working within the same tissue of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana, a flowering plant often used in genetic studies. Their results suggest that plants can integrate information from at least two environmental signals, light and temperature, which is important in order to respond to seasonal changes.

The study, published this week, appears in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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To carry out their functions, proteins must first fold into particular structures. How rapidly this process can occur has been both a source of debate and a roadblock to comparing protein folding theory and experiment.

Now, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have observed a protein that hit a speed limit when folding into its native state.

“Some of our proteins were folding as fast as they possibly could — in only one or two microseconds,” said Martin G

May explain life extension via calorie restriction

Researchers at Harvard Medical School (HMS) have discovered that a gene in yeast is a key regulator of lifespan. The gene, PNC1, is the first that has been shown to respond specifically to environmental factors known to affect lifespan in many organisms. A team led by David Sinclair, assistant professor of pathology at HMS, found that PNC1 is required for the lifespan extension that yeast experience under calorie restriction. A yeast

Duke University Medical Center biochemists have developed a computational method to design proteins that can specifically detect a wide array of chemicals from TNT to brain chemicals involved in neurological disorders. In a paper in the May 8, 2003, issue of the journal Nature, they demonstrate the breadth of their design method, and also that such sensor proteins can be re-incorporated into cells to activate cellular signaling and genetic pathways.

The researchers said their achievement c

Radiofrequency ablation — using heat to treat cancers – offers some lung cancer patients an alternative to extensive surgery, additional chemotherapy or radiation therapy, a new study shows.

Researchers at the Oncology Institute in Bari, Italy, treated 40 lung nodules found in 18 patients. Fourteen patients had lung metastases and four patients had non-small cell lung cancer that could not be surgically removed. All of the patients had initially undergone chemotherapy for their disease.

“Full-field digital tomosynthesis is mammography–only better,” researchers say of a new technique that just might be the next generation of breast cancer screening. Two new studies on this technique illustrate that full-field digital tomosynthesis (TOMO) can not only increase the visibility of breast lesions but could likely dramatically reduce the number of patients being called back for a second mammogram because their first screening mammogram was unclear.

In the first study, researchers