Cellular attack tactic keeps virus at bay.

A new AIDS vaccine could be one of the most promising yet. The drug’s effects in monkeys suggest that killing virus-laden cells may form a key part of future vaccination strategies.

Vaccinated monkeys survived a usually lethal infection with a monkey-human hybrid virus, SHIV. Their primed immune system kept virus levels below detection, Emilio Emini of Merck Research Laboratories in West Point, Pennsylvania, and his team now report

Radiologists in Nottingham have discovered a fast and accurate technique to diagnose deep vein thrombosis (DVT), which may be particularly helpful to pregnant women and travellers at risk of developing dangerous blood clots.

In a study funded by the British Heart Foundation and published this week in the American journal, the Annals of Internal Medicine, (15 January 2002, volume 136, number 2) Professor Alan Moody and his team in the department of academic radiology at the University of Nott

Missing protein leaves mice impervious to pain

Researchers have a new lead for treating pain. A protein called DREAM appears to play a key role in how mice respond to heat, touch and inflammation 1 .

Mice lacking DREAM seem oblivious to all types of pain, find Josef Penninger and his colleagues at The AMGEN Institute, Toronto, Canada. The animals can bear acute pain – the kind caused for example by heat, pressure, or injections as well as chronic inflammatory

A new theory on the evolution of ancient microbes is set to challenge widespread scientific views of early life on earth and could overturn previous interpretations of the huge bank of molecular taxonomic data that has been built up in recent years, according to research published today in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.

“I`ve reinterpreted fossil records to show that eukaryotes, which includes plants, animals and fungi, are only half as old as previous

Most mothers-to-be must simply hope for healthy offspring. But female house finches tip the odds in their babies’ favor by pre-determining their gender, a new study suggests. According to a report published in the current issue of the journal Science, enterprising mother house finches adjust the sex and growth of their offspring to account for the order in which the eggs are laid, thereby reducing the mortality of their sons and daughters by 10 to 20 percent.

Alexander Badyaev of the Univer

Knowing the human genetic sequence helps unearth invaders.

Human DNA is a new device for disease detectives. The database of human genetics can expose misfit microbe genes in diseased tissues, a US team have found.

Matthew Meyerson, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and his colleagues compared 7,000 DNA sequences extracted from cervical cancer cells to the vast database of human genes – and pulled out two misfits. Both were from a virus known to cause the cancer

The ‘humble’ aspirin, which has been known for at least a decade to prevent heart attacks and strokes in thousands of people at high risk of cardiovascular disease, is still massively underused, according to new research published today (Fri Jan 11) in the British Medical Journal.

Previous studies show that aspirin (and other antiplatelet drugs) could prevent around 100,000 premature deaths worldwide every year, including at least 7,000 per year in Britain alone. As a result, aspirin is almo

General practitioners prescribe antibiotics to three-quarters of UK adults with acute bronchitis each year, even though there is little evidence to justify it. Yet, a study in this week’s BMJ finds that reassuring these patients and sharing the uncertainty about prescribing in an information leaflet reduces antibiotic use.

In this study, over 250 adults with acute bronchitis were divided into two groups. In group A, 212 patients were judged by their general practitioner not to need antibioti

Middle-aged men are over three times more likely to suffer a fatal stroke if they suffer from depression, according to latest research published in `Stroke`.
The results are taken from an on-going study, funded by The Stroke Association, of 2,124 men aged between 49-64 years old, living in Caerphilly, South Wales. The men were studied for over 14 years after an initial medical check up and a history of mood, smoking, blood pressure levels and other risk factors were collected.

During t

Authors of a study in this week’s issue of THE LANCET conclude that smokers should avoid smoking for around two months before surgery to reduce the risk of cardiovascular or wound-healing complications.

Smokers are at higher risk of cardiopulmonary and wound-related postoperative complications than non-smokers due to the adverse effects of tobacco smoke on the body’s cardiopulmonary function and immune system. Ann Moller and colleagues from Bispebjerg University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmar

Scientists are calling it “biology of the next generation,” and a major step towards transforming information from genome projects into applications such as the discovery of new drugs. Today researchers from Heidelberg have announced the completion of a large-scale study of the “molecular machines” formed by nearly two thousand proteins in a living cell.

In a paper published in the current edition of Nature, a team of scientists from the biotechnology start-up company CellZome and the Europe

BSE in sheep: first estimates of human death toll

The first attempt to estimate the human health risk from possible BSE infection of the British sheep flock is published today by researchers from Imperial College, London.

They show that while the present risk of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) from eating sheep could be greater than that from cattle, the overall historical risk from sheep is much less than that from cattle.

The research, which is reported in the jo

A virus that causes a fatal brain disease in horses and sheep may be linked to certain mental disorders in man, medical experts heard today (Wednesday 09 January 2002) during a joint meeting of the European Societies of Clinical and Veterinary Virology and the Society for General Microbiology at the Royal College of Physicians, London.

“Recent investigations have again stimulated highly controversial discussions as to whether Borna disease virus can infect humans and lead to psychiatric diso

The discovery of small spikes lining the mouths of primitive fossil fish reveal surprising new details about how early animals fed. New research published today in a Royal Society paper sheds light on how teeth evolved.

Primitive fish did not have jaws or fins but were covered in rigid bony scales and resembled small armour-plated submarines. Dr Mark Purnell, a palaeontologist at the University of Leicester, has discovered that heterostracans, one of the most important groups of these early

Results for New Oxazolidinone Demonstrate Potency Against Gram-Positive Pathogens, including Superbugs

Unique compound AZD2563 shows promise for once-daily dosing

Chicago, IL World-wide data presented at the 41st Interscience Congress on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) show that AstraZeneca`s new oxazolidinone (AZD2563) is active against Gram-positive bacteria, including multi-drug resistant strains, and may have the added convenience of potential once-daily administra

Researchers at the University of Bristol have found that pregnant women who frequently use cannabis during their pregnancy may affect the growth of their unborn child. With the recent change in status of cannabis from a class A to class B drug, it is important to assess whether it is entirely safe for use during pregnancy. A marker which often indicates an effect on the unborn child is the baby`s weight at birth.

The findings were announced by Kate Northstone, from the Children of the 90s p