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IVF process may lack natural growth factors in fluid

The lack of natural growth factors in the fluid in which IVF embryos are grown could have lifelong effects on people conceived this way. That is the implication of a study on mice by Australian researchers, who say preliminary studies of human embryos back their claims.

16 Feb 2005

Clinical trial of newest technology to treat thoracic aortic aneurysms

A clinical trial is underway at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) to study the safety and effectiveness of an endovascular medical device to treat life-threatening thoracic aortic aneurysms. Ronald Fairman, MD, Chief of Vascular Surgery at HUP, is leading the study at Penn and is one of 35 principal investigators in North America to participate in this landmark trial.

16 Feb 2005

Single gene variant may increase a man's risk of prostate cancer by 50%

In 2001, Mount Sinai researchers published a study in Science that showed that a gene, known as KLF6, fails to function properly in at least 50 to 60 percent of all prostate cancers. This was the first single gene shown to be responsible for the majority of cases of this disease, which affects approximately 200,000 men each year.

16 Feb 2005

Protein may provide a powerful new therapeutic tool for fighting kidney failure

Kidney failure is a significant risk for patients undergoing cardiopulmonary bypass surgery, radiologic testing, antibiotic therapy or in patients suffering from severe infections. More than 80 percent of patients with postoperative acute renal failure die.

16 Feb 2005

Antigens produced by the Epstein Barr virus may provide an ideal target for cancer therapy

A typically innocuous virus found in 90 percent of people worldwide is the key to a new treatment for a cancer particularly common in North Africa and Southeast Asia.

16 Feb 2005

Changing chemistry helps explain estrogen threat to the heart

A piece of the topical puzzle of how estrogen goes from protecting women from heart disease to apparently increasing their risk later in life may have been found.

16 Feb 2005

Early epidurals do not increase risk of Cesarean delivery

A study published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine by researchers at Northwestern Memorial Hospital refutes the popular belief that getting an epidural early in labor increases a woman's risk of cesarean delivery.

16 Feb 2005

Merck issues statement on Vioxx lawsuits

The federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation today granted motions by several parties, including Merck, to transfer all Vioxx product liability lawsuits pending in federal courts nationwide into one consolidated Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) for coordinated pre-trial proceedings.

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

Schizophrenia may arise from a single genetic defect

Researchers have long puzzled over the apparently multiple causes of complex developmental disorders such as schizophrenia. Individuals seem to be predisposed to the disease by a tragic, mysterious combination of genetics, prenatal trauma, viral infection, and early experience.

16 Feb 2005

Research shows that individual NAc neurons play a role in Pavlovian learning

While the brain center called the nucleus accumbens (NAc) has been called a key component of the brain's "reward" pathways, researchers' experiments with rats have now shown that the center processes not only rewarding stimuli, but also aversive stimuli.

16 Feb 2005

New findings challenge one of the established views of how nerve cells communicate with one another

Every time we move, feel emotions, think or remember, the nerve cells, or neurons, in our body transmit messages to one another via chemical signals called neurotransmitters. Within neurons are tiny organelles called synaptic vesicles that sequester neurotransmitters and release them when needed into the synapse, or space between nerve cells, where the chemical signal is transmitted to other neurons.

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

$Link between lactose malabsorption and the occurrence of bone fracture in elderly people$

Link between lactose malabsorption and the occurrence of bone fracture in elderly people

Published in January and conducted by researchers from the Universities of Helsinki and Kuopio and the National Public Health Institute, the study investigated the relation between the genotype associated with lactose malabsorption and the occurrence of bone fracture in the elderly. The study included 483 elderly people in the City of Vantaa – 377 women and 106 men – all over 85 years of age.

16 Feb 2005

EuroVacc 02 HIV Vaccine trial begins

The European Vaccine Effort against HIV/AIDS, has announced that a phase I clinical trial of novel investigational vaccines comprising DNA-HIV-C and NYVAC-HIV-C for the prevention of HIV infection has started in Lausanne and London in February 2005.

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

Coffee consumption may be associated with a decreased risk of hepatocellular carcinoma

Two new studies in the February 16 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute examine the effects of coffee consumption on the incidence of liver and colorectal cancers. One study found that drinking coffee daily is associated with a decreased risk of liver cancer, while the other found no association between drinking coffee or tea and the risk of colorectal cancer.

15 Feb 2005

Novel genetic test helps detect mutations that may be missed by conventional DNA test

Researchers have identified a genetic test that when used with DNA testing would detect a higher number of genetic mutations in colorectal cancer patients, according to a study in the February 16 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on medical applications of biotechnology.

15 Feb 2005

New technique to identify fetal genetic material from amniotic fluid

A preliminary report suggests that cell-free fetal messenger RNA (ribonucleic acid) can be extracted from amniotic fluid (fluid around the fetus), and then be analyzed to study gene expression changes that may reflect the well-being of the fetus, according to a paper in the February 16 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on medical applications of biotechnology.

15 Feb 2005

New simple and cost-effective method of diagnosing hereditary genetic disorders

A technique called size-fractionation performed on a sample of the mother's blood allows researchers to identify fetal DNA molecules separate from maternal DNA as a way to determine which pregnancies may be at risk for genetic disorders, according to a preliminary communication in the February 16 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on medical applications of biotechnology.

15 Feb 2005