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Gut protein protects against infection and intestinal breakdown

A protein that binds to bile in the small intestine may hold the key to preventing infection and intestinal breakdown in people with conditions such as obstructive jaundice or irritable bowel syndrome, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered.

12 Feb 2006

More training needed to ensure accuracy of urine drug tests

In a survey of primary care physicians, most reported not using proper techniques when collecting urine samples for drug tests on adolescents and were often unaware of the tests' limitations, according to an article in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

9 Feb 2006

Researchers define a new "first step" that initiates sepsis

A Mayo Clinic research team has challenged the accepted theory on the cause of sepsis -- a condition in which the body's cells generate fever, shock and often death. Sepsis is thought to occur when poisons from bacterial infection interfere with the cells.

9 Feb 2006

Case biologists move closer to biologically inspired robots

The brain as command center for bodily movement was too simple an idea, thought the Russian physiologist Nicolas Bernstein some 60 years ago.

9 Feb 2006

Cancer researchers find evolutionary change that occurred in a key developmental signalling pathway

Cancer researchers at the University of Helsinki, in trying to find a novel tumor suppressor gene, instead found an important evolutionary change that occurred in a key developmental signalling pathway. The finding suggests a potential mechanism for evolution of complex intercellular signalling pathways.

9 Feb 2006

Researchers find new mechanism potentially explaining evolution of signalling pathways

7 Feb 2006

Viruses can be forced to evolve in ways to benefit humans

Viruses and humans have evolved together over millions of years in a game of one-upmanship that, often as not, left humans sick or worse.

7 Feb 2006

Step toward understanding the mystery surrounding drug resistance

The cellular "pumps" associated with multi-drug resistance in bacteria may also be involved in exporting signals responsible for cell-cell communication, a process known as quorum sensing, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in a report that appears online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

7 Feb 2006

Hormone discovered in bird brains also plays major role in mammalian reproductive system

University of California, Berkeley, researchers have discovered a new actor in the mammalian reproductive system, a hormone that fills a role long suspected, but until now undetected.

7 Feb 2006

HIV subtype is a better predictor than viral load for determining rapid death from AIDS

Traditional testing standards help monitor the progression of an HIV infection to AIDS by keeping track of viral load, using a scale in which less than 50 viral particles per cubic milliliter of blood is considered suppressed disease and a viral load of more than 75,000 particles per cubic milliliter of blood means that the disease will progress more rapidly.

7 Feb 2006

Researcher identifies key to macular degeneration progression

Dr. Jayakrishna Ambati UK HealthCare physician and Associate Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, announced a discovery by his research team that will impact how physicians and patients approach treatment for macular degeneration.

7 Feb 2006

Pollution may increase heart attack risk for obese

A University of Alberta researcher believes obese humans face same dangers from diesel exhaust and coal emissions.

7 Feb 2006

Mad cow proteins also maintain stem cells

What do mad cow disease and stem cell research have in common? Whitehead Institute scientists have found that the same protein that causes neurodegenerative conditions such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) is also important for helping certain adult stem cells maintain themselves.

7 Feb 2006

Common cardiac sodium channel variant associated with sudden infant death in African Americans

Steve A.N. Goldstein and colleagues from the Pritzker School of Medicine in Chicago have found that a specific mutation, called S1103Y, in a heart protein known as SCN5A is associated with a dramatic, 24-fold increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in African American infants.

7 Feb 2006

Eosinophilic esophagitis gene discovery

Researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center have discovered the first gene associated with eosinophilic esophagitis, one of a number of eosinophil-related diseases in which the body produces abnormally large amounts of white blood cells that can lead to allergy related illnesses.

7 Feb 2006

Pain sensitivity is enhanced when people are thirsty

Researchers at Melbourne's Howard Florey Institute have discovered how the brain prioritises pain and thirst in order to survive - a mechanism that helps elite athletes to 'push through the pain barrier'.

7 Feb 2006

Link between dementia and cancer

By expressing a protein associated with Alzheimer's disease in the brain of the fruit fly, researchers have demonstrated an intriguing link between neuronal death and proteins previously associated with cancer.

7 Feb 2006

New insight into one of the fundamental features of evolution

By experimentally promoting rapid, small-scale evolution within a lab population of yeast, researchers have shed light on the kinds of genetic changes that may underlie the emergence of new species.

7 Feb 2006

Mediterranean diet may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease in patients with metabolic syndrome

Nearly 50 million Americans have metabolic syndrome, a cluster of risk factors placing them at increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

7 Feb 2006

Abraham Lincoln may have suffered from movement disorder

Researchers at Johns Hopkins and the University of Minnesota have discovered a gene mutation in the descendants of Abraham Lincoln's grandparents that suggests the Civil War president himself might have also suffered from a disease that destroys nerve cells in the cerebellum-- the part of the brain that controls movement.

7 Feb 2006