A new group of arthritis drugs recommended by NICE for patients at risk of gastrointestinal complications may be safer than traditional drugs, research in this week’s BMJ suggests.

Claims that the drugs, known as selective COX2 inhibitors, caused fewer gastrointestinal problems than traditional arthritis drugs led to an increase in their use, but the research on which they were based was criticised.

Two studies in this week’s BMJ, however, show that the risk of gastrointestinal comp

Proteins that work in immune system also play fundamental role in heart size and function

Researchers have identified two proteins that play fundamental roles in heart size and function and have genetically uncoupled them, a discovery the scientists hope will lead to better treatments for those with cardiovascular disease.

“We initially had a hint that the protein called PTEN controls cell size,” says Josef Penninger, professor of medical biophysics and immunology at U of T,

A new approach to cancer treatment that replaces a patient’s immune system with cancer-fighting cells can lead to tumor shrinkage, researchers report today in the journal Science*. The study demonstrates that immune cells, activated in the laboratory against patients’ tumors and then administered to those patients, can attack cancer cells in the body.

The experimental technique, known as adoptive transfer, has shown promising results in patients with metastatic melanoma who have not respond

Researchers from the University of Nottingham set out to determine whether people whose marital partners suffered with a certain condition such as depression, high blood pressure or asthma were at increased risk of suffering from the same disease.

Over 8,000 married couples aged between 30 and 74 years of age took part in the study. After adjustments were made for age, obesity and smoking status in both partners it was found that the partners of people with asthma, depression and peptic ulc

The Swedish Radiation Protection Authority has engaged two internationally well-known epidemiologists to review published epidemiological studies on the relationship between the use of cellular telephones and cancer risk. They are Dr. John D. Boice, Jr. and Dr. Joseph K. McLaughlin from the International Epidemiology Institute, USA.

In their review, no consistent evidence was observed for increased risk of brain cancer, meningioma, acoustic neurinoma, ocular melanoma, or salivary gland canc

Eavesdropping among animals influences their behavior, Lee Dugatkin, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Louisville, has found.

Dugatkin and a colleague, Ryan Earley of Georgia State University, studied eavesdropping among male swordtail fish they placed in an experimental tank. They put two fish on one side of a partition and a lone observer male on the other. In some cases, the partitions were clear and in others, opaque.

The fish that could observe their potential adve

Why live in a glass house? For diatoms — tiny ocean-dwelling organisms that live in exquisitely ornate glass cases — the benefit turns out to be enormous.

In a paper published in the Sept. 13 issue of Science, Princeton scientists show that diatoms probably depend on glass to survive because the material facilitates photosynthesis. However, their study suggests that this domestic arrangement has a much bigger beneficiary: the entire planet, which owes its present-day, oxygen-rich and carbo

Using x-ray crystallography, researchers have produced the first images of a large molecular complex that helps shape and load the small, bubble-like vesicles that transport newly formed proteins in the cell. Understanding vesicle “budding” is one of the prerequisites for learning how proteins and other molecules are routed to their correct destinations in the cell.

In an article published in the September 19, 2002, issue of the journal Nature, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investi

Knowing an organism’s genome is good, but knowing what turns on its genes is even better.

Scientists have long searched for triggers that activate ribonucleic acid (RNA), a key component in gene expression. Now, in the Thursday, Sept. 19 issue of the journal Nature, scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison report that they have found an enzyme that activates RNA, which could lead to new ways of regulating genetic information.

“One of the big questions in molecular

Two scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have described how a plant grown in their laboratory uses two sets of proteins to detect the seasons so that it can flower at the right time. And by tinkering with those proteins, the scientists were able to make the plant flower at will.

“We have demonstrated, for the first time, how plants can anticipate the seasons so that they can flower appropriately,” says Marcelo Yanovsky, Ph.D., who is a research associate at TSRI and the lead

Scientists are developing a method that could prevent lung infections in people who smoke, according to a paper presented today (Wednesday 18 September) at the Society for General Microbiology autumn meeting at Loughborough University.

“We’ve used a human tissue model to show how we can prevent Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) bacteria from invading cells in the lungs. These bacteria attach themselves to mucus and damaged tissue lining the lungs, and often cause infections in people with ex

A drug used to help control psychotic behavior in people with schizophrenia holds promise for controlling similar symptoms in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, a new study suggests.

What sets this drug – called quetiapine – apart from its contemporary counterparts is its apparent lack of serious side effects, such as confusion, muscle stiffness and imbalance in the joints, said Douglas Scharre, a study co-author and an associate professor of clinical neurology at Ohio State Universit

The average person’s heart pumps about a gallon of blood per minute, a rate that can easily triple or quadruple during exercise.

The rapid flow of blood through the body is a major roadblock to the use of gene therapy to cure diseases. When injected into the blood, vector viruses – which carry corrective genes – tend to shoot past the target organ or tissue rather than sticking to it, like grains of sand moving past stones in a fast-flowing river.

Now, University of Florida g

A new class of all organic composites that change shape under an electric voltage may open the door for the manufacture of artificial muscles, smart skins, capacitors, and tiny drug pumps, according to Penn State researchers.

“Electroactive polymers have been around for a long time, but the energy input required for them to do enough work to be of value was very high,” says Dr. Qiming Zhang, professor of electrical engineering. “With this new composite we have reduced the voltage to one tent

Scientists for the first time have engineered a harmless virus to correct, rather than replace, the genetic defect causing the most common single gene disorder.

The new research presents a novel approach to gene therapy in treating the most common inherited anemias: the thalassemias. Thalassemias are genetic blood diseases that result in failure to produce sufficient hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying protein component of blood cells. This failure is caused by defects in the genetic code respo

How to build greater coherence in European cancer research? This is the key question to be debated at a conference today, which brings together around 250 representatives from science, the medical profession, government, patient organisations, foundations, industry and European institutions.

The aim of the conference, jointly organised by the European Commission and the European Parliament, is to kick-off the conception of a joint European strategy for cancer research, rallying all actors c