New study results offer potential explanation of complications from birth control pills

When women think about birth control, estrogen, and cardiovascular risk, they often assume that there are no answers. They would appear to be correct.

On the one hand, new pharmacological advancements have provided combination oral contraceptive (OC) formulations with lower-dose estrogen. These formulations have significantly less risk of cardiovascular adverse events compared to the olde

New study results demonstrate why caffeine and ephedra may provide a “final boost”

After Baltimore Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler died during spring training earlier this year, the spotlight again turned on the dietary supplement ephedra. The Chinese herb, used for asthma in the 1960s, is attractive to athletes, because it provides and energy “boost” during games, and offers pound-dropping qualities (an attraction for Bechler, who was ten pounds overweight).

Ephedra has been

Hepatitis C Virus (HCV), as a major agent of non-A, non-B hepatitis (NANBH), has been described as an insidious disease and a silent epidemic, mainly because the infection is often sub-clinical. Acute infection is recognized in a minority of patients and in most cases the virus results in chronic infections taking 10-20 years before the emergence of liver disease. In the US, almost four million individuals are infected and up to 170 million worldwide.

Background

An imbalance

The sex of newborns is dictated by the X and Y chromosomes – girls are XX whereas boys are XY. However, new research from Northwestern University has shown that normal testis formation depends on two genes — the so-called male-determining SRY gene, found on the Y chromosome 10 years ago, and a gene called Dax1 on the X (female) chromosome.
Based on the findings of the Northwestern study, published in the May online Nature Genetics, it now appears that Dax1 is required at several points in embr

An international collaboration between medical researchers may have identified how meningitis causing bacteria cross from the blood into the brain, paving the way for new strategies to prevent this fatal disease, the Society for General Microbiology’s Spring Meeting in Edinburgh heard today, Tuesday 8 April 2003.
“Almost every known bacteria which attacks people could potentially cause meningitis,” says Professor Kwang Sik Kim of John Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA who worked on this issue fo

British children’s lives might be saved by being routinely vaccinated for chickenpox, according to Dr Anne Gershon, speaking at the Society for General Microbiology’s Spring Meeting in Edinburgh today, Wednesday 9 April 2003.

“At the moment British children are not given routine vaccinations. In the USA and Canada one dose against chickenpox is given to children under 13 years old, and two doses are given to older children and adults, which appears to significantly cut down outbreaks of the

Baby fat may be cuddly to new parents but pediatricians are increasingly warning families about serious medical problems resulting from baby fat that never goes away. Type 2 diabetes is on the increase in overweight and obese children in America. According to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center pediatric endocrinologist David Geller, M.D., Ph.D., “Childhood obesity is the primary reason we are seeing such a huge increase in type 2 diabetes in kids today. Clearly there is an inexorable increase in body girth

Building on their 2001 discovery of a cellular doorway used by anthrax toxin to enter cells, University of Wisconsin Medical School researchers have found a second anthrax toxin doorway, or receptor. The finding could offer new clues to preventing the toxin’s entrance into cells.

The researchers also have found that when they isolated a specific segment of the receptor in the laboratory, they could use it as a decoy to lure anthrax toxin away from the real cell receptors, preventing much o

Since Charles Darwin heralded evolution more than 150 years ago, scientists have sought to better understand when and how the vast variety of plants today diverged from common ancestors.

A new University of Georgia study, just published in Nature, demonstrates key events in plant evolution. It allows scientists to infer what the gene order may have looked like in a common ancestor of higher plants. And it shows one way plants may have differentiated from their ancestors and each other.

The desire for healthy-looking skin has existed throughout the centuries and has often led humanity to flowers and other plants in search of assistance. COSMACTIVE treads the same path, but uses the latest in biotechnology to identify and extract the active ingredients from a wide range of plants.

Under the umbrella of the EUREKA project COSMACTIVE, the French research company Greentech has developed a new way of identifying and selecting active ingredients that gives it, and its Spanish par

Implications for treatment, defense against chemical weapons

A study led by scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill offers the first molecular explanation of how the body metabolizes and detoxifies cocaine and heroin. “We show for the first time how humans initiate the breakdown and clearance of these dangerous narcotics,” said Dr. Matthew R. Redinbo, assistant professor in the department of chemistry, and in the School of Medicine’s department of biochemist

The unpleasant and painful sores, and infection of newborn babies caused by the genital herpes virus could soon be a thing of the past according to Dr Julian Hickling, who is presenting results from Xenova Research Ltd today, Tuesday 8 April 2003, to the Society for General Microbiology’s Spring Meeting in Edinburgh.

“The challenge is trying to achieve a good balance between safety and a vaccine that really works,” says Dr Hickling, Research Director, Biologics of pharmaceutical company Xeno

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have devised an advanced technique that uses mass spectrometry to identify specific proteins that are over-expressed in cancer cells, blood, urine, or any substance that contains proteins.

Using this new technique, they have already identified two proteins – MIF and CyP-A — whose levels are elevated in lung cancer cells but not in normal cells, said Edward Patz, M.D., professor of radiology and pharmacology and cancer biology at Duke.

USC researchers uncover mechanism of class- switching in antibodies

A team of scientists from the Keck School of Medicine of USC has, for the first time, described a new, stable DNA structure in both mouse and human cells-one which differs from the standard Watson-and-Crick double helix and plays a critical role in the production of antibodies, or immunoglobulins.
The research will be published online in the journal Nature Immunology this week, and will appear in print in the jou

May lead to sharper picture of human genome as well

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists have used a powerful gene-mapping technique to produce the clearest picture yet of all the genes of an animal – the microscopic worm Caenorhabditis elegans (better known as C. elegans). Scientists believe the same technique may be used to bring the current, somewhat blurry picture of the human genome into sharper focus.

The study, which will be posted on the Nature Genetics website (

Researchers in Oxford University’s Department of Human Anatomy have identified a factor involved in the regeneration of neurons in the central nervous system. The discovery and use of this factor could provide the basis for a reparative treatment for both brain and spinal cord injuries.

Unlike lower vertebrates, mammals have lost the ability to repair damage to the brain and spinal cord. Since peripheral nerves are capable of repair, this is thought to be not so much an intrinsic inability o