CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (August 7, 2008) – Embryonic stem cells are always facing a choice—either to self-renew or begin morphing into another type of cell altogether.
It's a tricky choice, governed by complex gene regulatory circuitry driven by a handful of key regulators known as "master transcription factors," proteins that switch gene expression on or off.
Cambridge, UK, 07 August 2008 - "Big things come in small packages," the saying goes, and it couldn't be more true when discussing the mouse. This little creature has become a crucial part of human history through its contributions in understanding human genetics and disease. In a review published in Disease Models & Mechanisms (DMM), http://dmm.biologists.org, genetics researchers from Yale University School of Medicine and Fudan University School of Life Sciences discuss the history and future of mice as a model organism.
Irvine, Calif., Aug. 7, 2008 — Despite some improvements to lower "bad" cholesterol levels, people with cardiovascular diseases still need to do a better job controlling overall blood lipid levels, according to a UC Irvine Heart Disease Prevention Program study.
U.S. Military HIV Research Program (USMHRP) researcher Victoria R. Polonis, Ph.D., and colleagues released findings on a study of cross-clade neutralization patterns among HIV-1 strains from six major clades in the 5 Jun 2008 issue of Virology.
A medical test developed to detect an overload of iron in humans has recently been adapted to screen for the condition in some distant relatives: diminutive monkeys from South America, according to veterinarians at the Wildlife Conservation Society.
New research in the latest issue of the Society of Chemical Industry's (SCI) Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture shows there is no evidence to support the argument that organic food is better than food grown with the use of pesticides and chemicals
Many people pay more than a third more for organic food in the belief that it has more nutritional content than food grown with pesticides and chemicals.
MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. -- Imagine an edible optical sensor that could be placed in produce bags to detect harmful levels of bacteria and consumed right along with the veggies. Or an implantable device that would monitor glucose in your blood for a year, then dissolve.
Troy, N.Y. — An international team of researchers has identified just 200 positions within the curves of the DNA helix that they believe capture much of the genetic diversity in European Americans, a population with one of the most diverse and complex historic origins on Earth. Their findings narrow the search for the elusive ancestral clues known as single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, that cause disease and account for the minute variations in the European American population.
A spin out company from basic structural biology, Asterion Ltd., has led to new technology that provides a way of creating therapeutic proteins to tackle major diseases such as cancer, diabetes and infertility. The research was carried out at the University of Sheffield in laboratories supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). This work is reported in the current edition of BBSRC Business, the quarterly research highlights magazine of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
Scientists at the BBSRC-funded Institute for Animal Health (IAH) are stepping up the battle against the devastating and economically damaging bluetongue virus. By combining ingenious ways to trap and monitor midges with cutting edge computer modelling and weather predictions the IAH team are gaining an understanding of how the insects spread the disease so that they can improve surveillance methods and advise farmers how and when to protect their animals.
Thought experiment: a carbon dioxide molecule—think of a cheerleader's baton—comes slanting in at high speed over a dense liquid, strikes the surface and ricochets. How does it tumble? Fast or slow? Forward, backward or sideways? These are not idle questions because simple events like the tumbling molecule go to the heart of the chemistry and physics of gas-liquid interactions. These cover a broad swath of important chemical processes—including breathing—for which details of the encounter are just coming into view.
High food prices, concern over dwindling supplies of fossil fuels and the desire for clean, renewable energy have led many to seek ways to make ethanol out of cellulosic sources such as wood, hay and switchgrass. But today's processes are notoriously inefficient. In a new paper,* researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have detailed some of the most fundamental processes involved in extracting sugars from biomass, the first step in producing ethanol by fermentation.
A new chemical probe can rapidly detect ricin, a deadly poison with no known antidote that is feared to be a potential weapon for terrorists and cannot quickly be identified with currently available tests.
The probe, developed by chemists at UC San Diego, glows when bound to a ricin-damaged part of the body's protein-making machinery, they report in the international edition of the journal Angewandte Chemie. Because the test pinpoints the specific injury underlying the poison's toxicity, it could also help to develop drugs to counteract the effect of ricin.
CHICAGO, August 7, 2008—The American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) today announced results from a survey conducted by Harris Interactive highlighting communication between people with diabetes that require insulin injections and their healthcare providers.
NEW YORK, August 6, 2008 – Researchers at the NYU Cancer Institute and the Ronald O. Perelman Department of Dermatology have identified mebendazole, a drug used globally to treat parasitic infections, as a novel investigational agent for the treatment of chemotherapy-resistant malignant melanoma.