Medical Science News

RSS

Dietary protein and bone health revisited

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists first compared high-meat protein diets with low-meat protein diets. Now, they've compared animal-protein diets with vegetable-protein diets. This "sequel" study rocks the foundation, again, of a commonly held belief that high-protein diets can be bad for bones.

22 Feb 2005

New findings on the regulation of cellular growth

A greatly increased synthesis of new proteins is one of the first and most important events that occur in both normal and tumour cells upon growth stimulation.

21 Feb 2005

Global warming will bring climate-related health crises

As a result, governments and health officials need to begin to think about how to respond to an anticipated increase in the number and scope of climate-related health crises, ranging from killer heat waves and famine, to floods and waves of infectious diseases.

20 Feb 2005

Programmed cell death may provide clues to cancer and autoimmune diseases therapies

Dartmouth Medical School geneticists have found links in the cell death machinery of worms and mammals, opening new avenues for studying and targeting a process vital to development and implicated in cancer and autoimmune diseases.

16 Feb 2005

Nanoscale mechanism to externally control the function and action of a protein

"We can switch a protein on and off, and while we have controlled a specific protein, we believe our approach will work with virtually any protein," said Giovanni Zocchi, assistant professor of physics at UCLA, member of the California NanoSystems Institute and leader of the research effort. "This research has the potential to start a new approach to protein engineering."

16 Feb 2005

New detection system to test athletes for performance-enhancing drugs

Scientists at The University of Nottingham are leading the field in developing a new detection system that could be used to test athletes for performance-enhancing drugs.

16 Feb 2005

Genetic manipulation cuts nerve damage, boosts life span

A novel genetic manipulation significantly extends the life spans of flies by reducing the amount of wear and tear suffered by nerve cells in adults, according to new work published in Cell Metabolism. The findings support the idea that therapies designed to protect the adult nervous system by curbing the production of damaging free radicals might effectively increase longevity in other animals, including humans, the researchers said.

15 Feb 2005

Ingestion of afterbirth appears to promote maternal behavior in mammals

A behavioral neuroscientist at the University at Buffalo holds that the ingestion of afterbirth by a mother, a feature of pregnancy in nearly all non-human mammals, not only relieves postpartum pain, but optimizes the onset of maternal behavior by mediating the activity of specific opioid activity circuits in the brain.

13 Feb 2005

New primate-specific gene family that spans about 10% of human chromosome 2

A team of scientists led by Peer Bork, Ph.D., Senior Bioinformatics Scientist at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, report today in the journal Genome Research that they have identified a new primate-specific gene family that spans about 10% of human chromosome 2.

13 Feb 2005

Scientists show knocking out key signals will cause diabetes

Using a revolutionary technique to turn off chemical signals inside the cell, scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center have discovered that the different metabolic abnormalities present in type 2 diabetes can be caused by knocking out two key signals in liver cells.

11 Feb 2005

Project makes Europe a leader in biocrystallography

A project to create a common platform throughout Europe for researchers working in the field of ‘biological crystallography’ is underway thanks to a grant of 10 million euros from the EU’s 6th Framework Programme (FP6).

8 Feb 2005

Nano-sized particles enable researchers to visualize a tumor using only infrared light

Nano-sized particles embedded with bright, light-emitting molecules have enabled researchers to visualize a tumor more than one centimeter below the skin surface using only infrared light.

7 Feb 2005

New way to assess the potentially damaging effects of prenatal drug exposure

Scientists have demonstrated a new way to assess the potentially damaging effects of prenatal drug exposure--a technique that could also be used to monitor a fetus's response to therapeutic drugs--using sophisticated, noninvasive medical imaging tools.

7 Feb 2005

Compound, derived from a rare South American plant, stops the growth of human breast cancer cells

They started with a bare room and an idea. Now, after five years of painstaking, sophisticated tests, scientists at the University of Virginia Health System have discovered that a compound, derived from a rare South American plant, stops the growth of human breast cancer cells in laboratory cultures.

1 Feb 2005

Scientists have coaxed human embryonic stem cells to become spinal motor neurons

After years of trial and error, scientists have coaxed human embryonic stem cells to become spinal motor neurons, critical nervous system pathways that relay messages from the brain to the rest of the body.

30 Jan 2005

Avalanches in your brain could actually help you to store memories

Meeting a friend you haven't seen in years brings on a sudden surge of pleasant memories. You might even call it an avalanche.

26 Jan 2005

Scientists gain ground in understanding cell motility

One of the most basic yet least understood processes in our bodies is how cells crawl along tissues. This behavior is essential to the formation of an embryo and other processes, but it must be tightly controlled. A disturbance can lead to the spread of cancer cells or diseases like Spina bifida and Lissencephaly, in which cells fail to reach their proper destinations.

26 Jan 2005

Modern humans have sloppy gene control mechanisms which can make us susceptible to diseases

Our evolutionary ancestors’ lack of choice in the mating game has left modern humans exposed to disease, according to new research published in the journal PLOS Biology today.

25 Jan 2005

Scientists answer the question, why do some people always seem to get bitten by mosquitoes more than others?

Now scientists from the United Kingdom's Rothamsted Research Centre, the largest agricultural research centre in the United Kingdom are asking why some people always seem to get bitten by mosquitoes more than others? These scientists believe they may have found the answer and their work could lead to the development of novel insect repellents.

24 Jan 2005

Scientists unravel first step in translating genetic information in order to build a protein

Timing is everything, it seems, even in science. A team led by Johns Hopkins scientists has unraveled the first step in translating genetic information in order to build a protein, only to find that it's not one step but two.

24 Jan 2005