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SeraCare Life Sciences launches new product to diagnose HIV

SeraCare Life Sciences, Inc. today announced that the Company has launched a set of new products in its diagnostic controls and panels portfolio—the SeraCare HIV-1 Seroconversion Panels. Each of the six panels consists of a set of undiluted plasma samples from a single plasma donor collected over a period of time during the development of detectable specific antibodies to HIV in the blood, or seroconversion, and is highly characterized with enhanced product information.

30 Jul 2010

White button mushrooms can keep the immune system healthy: Study

Mushrooms are among the many foods thought to play an important role in keeping the immune system healthy. Now, Agricultural Research Service funded scientists have conducted an animal-model and cell-culture study showing that white button mushrooms enhanced the activity of critical cells in the body's immune system.

30 Jul 2010

Tel Aviv University discovers molecular power behind memory

Neuroscientists have long wondered how individual connections between brain cells remain diverse and "fit" enough for storing new memories. Reported in the prestigious science journal Neuron, a new study led by Dr. Inna Slutsky of the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University describes what makes some memories stick.

30 Jul 2010

Transforaminal injection of steroids is a viable alternative for lumbar radicular pain surgery

A recent study from Australian researchers determined that transforaminal injection of steroids was a viable alternative to surgery for lumbar radicular pain due to disc herniation. Full details of the study appear in the August issue of Pain Medicine, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Academy of Pain Medicine, the Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists, and the International Spine Intervention Society.

30 Jul 2010

Supplementation of vitamin D protects vascular systems: Study

Vitamin D deficiency is associated with arterial stiffness, a risk factor for heart disease and stroke, in black teens according to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). Black teens taking vitamin D supplementation of 2,000 international units (IU) per day had a decrease in central arterial stiffness.

30 Jul 2010

Prostate basal cell can spawn tumors in prostate gland: Research

A type of prostate cell that has been largely ignored by cancer researchers can, in fact, trigger malignant prostate cancer, according to new studies by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) scientists and their colleagues.

30 Jul 2010

New paradigm in TB research may lead to improved vaccination, treatment

Often causing no symptoms in carriers of the disease, worldwide tuberculosis (TB) infects eight to ten million people every year, kills two million, and it is highly contagious as it is spread through coughing and sneezing. "It's a global health disaster waiting to happen, even here in Canada, but this new paradigm in TB research may offer an immediate opportunity to improve vaccination and treatment initiatives," explains Dr. Maziar Divangahi of McGill University and of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre.

30 Jul 2010

Cord Blood America announces highlights for 6-month period ended June 30, 2010

Cord Blood America, Inc., the umbilical cord blood stem cell preservation company focused on bringing the life saving potential of stem cells, a biological insurance policy, to families nationwide and internationally, today announced highlights for the six-month period ended June 30, 2010. The Company believes the period was the most significant and eventful in its history.

29 Jul 2010

Michelangelo appears to have hidden image of brainstem, spinal cord in Sistine Chapel's ceiling: Study

Michelangelo, the 16th century master painter and accomplished anatomist, appears to have hidden an image of the brainstem and spinal cord in a depiction of God in the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers reports. These findings by a neurosurgeon and a medical illustrator, published in the May Neurosurgery, may explain long controversial and unusual features of one of the frescoes' figures.

29 Jul 2010

Narcissistic heterosexual men target hostility primarily at heterosexual women

Heterosexual women bear the brunt of narcissistic heterosexual men's hostility, while heterosexual men, gay men and lesbian women provoke a softer reaction, according to psychologist Dr. Scott Keiller from Kent State University at Tuscarawas in the US. This is likely to be due to women's unparalleled potential for gratifying, or frustrating, men's narcissism. They are crucial players and even gatekeepers in men's quests for sexual pleasure, patriarchal power and status. Dr. Keiller's findings are published online in Springer's journal Sex Roles.

29 Jul 2010

Two middle school students join scientists to research on key bacterial enzyme

Grown-ups aren't the only ones making exciting scientific discoveries these days. Two middle school students from Wisconsin joined a team of scientists who are reporting the first glimpse of the innermost structure of a key bacterial enzyme. It helps activate certain antibiotics and anti-cancer agents so that those substances do their job. Their study appears in ACS' weekly journal Biochemistry.

29 Jul 2010

Researchers find how angiotensin influences immune system

Researchers in Heidelberg and Stanford have discovered a new signalling pathway of brain cells that explains how widely used antihypertensive drugs could keep inflammation in multiple sclerosis in check. The peptide angiotensin not only raises blood pressure but also activates the immunological messenger substance TGF beta on a previously unknown communication pathway in the brain.

29 Jul 2010

Exact Sciences to demonstrate methylation specific technology at AACC annual meeting

Exact Sciences Corp. today announced that data being presented this afternoon at the annual meeting of the American Association of Clinical Chemistry demonstrates that its methylation specific technology, using a combination of DNA methylation markers, detected 100 percent of colorectal cancers and precancers at a specificity cutoff of 100 percent in a preliminary study with colorectal tissue.

29 Jul 2010

ACT responds to FDA queries on Phase I/II study using ES cell derived retinal cells to treat SMD

Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. announced today that it has submitted documentation and a complete response to substantively address the issues raised by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in connection with the Company's plans to initiate a Phase I/II multicenter study using embryonic stem (ES) cell derived retinal cells to treat patients with Stargardt's Macular Dystrophy (SMD).

29 Jul 2010

Research to help people born with 'face blindness'

A specific area in our brains is responsible for processing information about human and animal faces, both how we recognize them and how we interpret facial expressions. Now, Tel Aviv University research is exploring what makes this highly specialized part of the brain unique, a first step to finding practical applications for that information.

29 Jul 2010

Scientists develop new version of medication to relieve severe forms of pain

Scientists have developed a new version of a medication, first isolated from the saliva of sea snails, that could be taken in pill form to relieve the most severe forms of pain as effectively as morphine but without risking addiction. An article on the topic appears in the current issue of Chemical & Engineering News, ACS' weekly newsmagazine.

29 Jul 2010

Researchers unveil mechanism of cholera bacteria to create cell energy

Researchers have found that an enzyme in the bacteria that causes cholera uses a previously unknown mechanism in providing the bacteria with energy. Because the enzyme is not found in most other organisms, including humans, the finding offers insights into how drugs might be created to kill the bacteria without harming humans.

29 Jul 2010

Scientists identify new targets to develop treatment for HD

Scientists at the Buck Institute for Age Research have discovered that a particular family of enzymes are involved in the breakdown of proteins that modify the production of toxic fragments that lead to the pathology of Huntington's disease. These enzymes, matrix metalloproteinases, provide new targets for drug therapies for the disease - targets that have already been shown to respond to cancer drugs currently in clinical development.

29 Jul 2010

Genetic signals determine neurotransmitter use for communication

Cascades of genetic signals determine which neurotransmitter a brain cell will ultimately use to communicate with other cells. Now a pair of reports from biologists at the University of California, San Diego, have shown for the first time that electrical activity in these developing neurons can alter their chemical fate-and change an animal's behavior-by tweaking this genetic program.

29 Jul 2010