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More useful plants may blossom from gene discoveries

It may be possible to alter plants so they are more nutritious and easier to process without weakening them so much they fall over, according to Purdue University researchers who found a new twist in a plant formation biochemical pathway.

19 Apr 2004

New information about how the brain processes information about an object's brightness

Howard Hughes Medical Institute scientists at The Salk Institute have discovered a new class of optical illusion that they have studied in detail to show that humans use both the timing and spatial context of a visual stimulus to judge brightness.

19 Apr 2004

Proteomics helps fight colon cancer

Using new technology associated with the study of proteins, or proteomics, scientists at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and their colleagues have made a step toward predicting which people with familial adenomatous polyposis.

19 Apr 2004

New evidence that brain circuits involved in drug addiction are also activated by the desire for food

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have produced new evidence that brain circuits involved in drug addiction are also activated by the desire for food.

19 Apr 2004

Menthol in topical creams relieves Osteoarthritis pain

A new study extends previous research and examines the effects of a topical cream consisting of cetylated fatty acids, along with the addition of menthol, on pain and functional performance in patients with knee osteoarthritis over the course of one week.

19 Apr 2004

Australian company set to spearhead drug discovery

An Australian company is set to challenge the boundaries of drug discovery in Australia with the unveiling of the nation's top drug discovery facility by Western Australian Minister for State Development, Clive Brown.

19 Apr 2004

Bladder cancer is the fourth most common cancer in men and the eighth most common in women

Bladder cancer is the fourth most common cancer in men and the eighth most common in women, according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI). It is expected to be diagnosed in 38,000 men and 15,000 women in the United States in 2003. Treatment is most successful when the disease is caught early.

18 Apr 2004

Measles outbreak prompts CDC to recommend suspension of adoptions from Chinese orphanage

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today recommended a temporary suspension of adoption proceedings for children from the Zhuzhou Child Welfare Institute in the Hunan Province of China, which is experiencing an outbreak of measles.

16 Apr 2004

Stem cell personal space determines their future

Johns Hopkins scientists report that restricting the shape and personal space of human stem cells from bone marrow is more important than any known molecular signal in determining the cell type they become.

16 Apr 2004

Extensive gene traffic, the process of genes leaving and arriving on the chromosome

Researchers at the University of Chicago have discovered there is extensive gene “traffic”—the process of genes leaving and arriving on the chromosome—on the mammalian X chromosome. They also have overturned a conventional theory about how genes evolved on the sex chromosome.

16 Apr 2004

New gene presents a potent new target for breast cancer therapy

A gene known to promote longevity in animals has now been discovered to encode a tumor suppressor – a protein that helps prevent cancer, according to a study by a team of scientists from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. The new gene, which was inactivated in two-thirds of patients studied, presents a potent new target for breast cancer therapy, the researchers say.

16 Apr 2004

New insights into how tumors neutralize CD8 T cells

Scientists have speculated that this may be because the immune response is not strong enough, or because it does not last long enough to have an effect. Hence the increasing efforts to develop cancer vaccines that induce, strengthen, and increase the duration of immunological attack against cancer cells.

16 Apr 2004

Breast cancer treatment based on MIT radar research

A breast cancer treatment based on MIT radar research that was originally aimed at detecting space-borne missiles is showing promise in the final phase of clinical testing.

16 Apr 2004

Cleaning up after major dirty bomb attack

A new study, scheduled to appear in the May 1 edition of Environmental Science & Technology, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, suggests that current regulations for environmental remediation are inadequate to deal with a dirty bomb attack.

16 Apr 2004

Proteomics techniques to find a possible predictor of response in a chemoprevention trial

16 Apr 2004

Muscle stem cells morph to resemble nerve cells

Taking a major step forward in stem cell biology, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have turned muscle progenitor cells — stem cells that are “committed” to becoming muscle tissue — into cells that look and act like neurons (nerve cells).

14 Apr 2004

Ground-breaking discoveries relating to the formation of kidney stones

Ground-breaking discoveries relating to the formation of kidney stones have earned Flinders University researchers a grant of more than $1.2 million (Australian) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the major funding body for medical science in the United States.

14 Apr 2004

Protein identification gets a speed boost

But the labor intensity of the procedure is now a thing of the past for researchers in the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine. The Proteomics Shared Resource, an unassuming but state-of-the-art lab on the fifth floor of OHSU's Medical Research Building, can process more than three times as many protein samples in half a day, and much of it can be done by one person.

14 Apr 2004

Extra funding aids brain research

A healthy arrival of funds over the past couple of years has produced "endorphins" in McMaster’s "brain" that has psychology researchers very excited.

14 Apr 2004

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute commits $30 million to beat infectious diseases

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is stepping up its commitment to fostering international biomedical research with two new competitions for more than $30 million in research grants to biomedical scientists outside the United States. Both competitions are aimed at promising researchers whose careers are still developing and who are the most likely targets of enticing job offers in more economically privileged countries.

13 Apr 2004