Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers – along with collaborators from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals – have found a way to block, in an animal model, the damaging inflammation that contributes to many disease conditions. In their report receiving early online publication in Nature Biotechnology, the investigators describe using small interfering RNA technology to silence the biochemical signals that attract a particular group of inflammatory cells to areas of tissue damage.
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One of the most successful strategies in pest control is to endow crop plants with genes from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt for short, which code for proteins that kill pests attempting to eat them.
An international team of researchers has discovered the first DNA faults linked to melanoma - the deadliest skin cancer - that are not related to hair, skin or eye colour.
Cancer Research UK scientists at the University of Leeds, together with a team from the GenoMEL consortium*, scanned the genes in blood samples from almost 3000 Europeans with melanoma, and compared these with samples taken from the general population.Their findings are published in Nature Genetics today.**
The genomic analysis technologies enable the study of genetic factors related to numerous diseases. In few areas this researches brought such a big and useful volume of information as in the case of melanoma. A study published in Nature Genetics, promoted by the GenoMEL consortium, consolidates the results obtained in previous whole-genome analysis and identifies three new chromosomal regions implicated in susceptibility to melanoma.
All cells in our body have a system that can handle cellular waste and release building blocks for recycling. The underlying mechanism is called autophagy and literally means "self-eating". Many cancer cells have increased the activity of this system and the increased release of building blocks equip the cancer cells with a growth advantage and can render them resistant towards treatment.
Research sometimes means looking for one thing and finding another, like when biology professor Alice Gibb and her research team at Northern Arizona University witnessed a small amphibious fish, the mangrove rivulus, jump with apparent skill and purpose out of a small net and back into the water.
A series of novel imaging agents could make it possible to "see" tumors in their earliest stages, before they turn deadly.
The compounds, derived from inhibitors of the enzyme cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and detectable by positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, may have broad applications for cancer detection, diagnosis and treatment.
Vanderbilt University investigators describe the new imaging agents in a paper featured on the cover of the October issue of Cancer Prevention Research.
Friday, October 7, 2011, Cleveland: Researchers have discovered a cellular pathway that promotes inflammation in diseases like asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease, and multiple sclerosis. Understanding the details of this pathway may provide opportunities for tailored treatments of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
Discovery of this pathway was the work of an active collaboration between Xiaoxia Li, Ph.D., and Thomas Hamilton, Ph.D., Department Chair, both of the Department of Immunology at Lerner Research Institute of Cleveland Clinic.
Cities are generally regarded as hostile for wildlife and urbanization a dramatic form of destruction of natural habitats. Still, they are far from dead zones. Their biodiversity may even exceed that of surrounding landscapes, owing to heterogeneous environments and frequent localization in naturally rich areas that historically supplied diverse resources for their human inhabitants.
Many of you might know that Congenital Dyserythropoietic Anemia type II (CDA II) is a rare blood disorder, due to a failure in final part of erythropoiesis. What will surprise you is the fact that some mutations responsible for the disease can be tracked 3.000 years back. A study led by the ENERCA member Prof.
A new University of Guelph study shows that gray jays hoping to survive and reproduce through Canada's harsh winters need to be able to store food in the right kinds of trees.
The study appears in Oecologia and was co-authored by Prof. Ryan Norris, Department of Integrative Biology; Brian Kielstra, an undergraduate student in the Department of Geography; and Dan Strickland, retired chief naturalist of Algonquin Park in Ontario.
Philadelphia, PA, October 6, 2011 – Bone marrow-derived cells (BMDCs) participate in the growth and spread of tumors of the breast, brain, lung, and stomach. To examine the role of BMDCs, researchers developed a mouse model that could be used to track the migration of these cells while tumors formed and expanded. Their results, published in the November issue of The American Journal of Pathology, strongly suggest that more effective cancer treatments may be developed by exploiting the mechanism by which bone marrow cells migrate to tumors and retard their proliferation.
New findings of researchers from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia by Mauro Mandrioli, Valentina Monti and Gian Carlo Manicardi show that in aphids the two X chromosomes have a different inheritance.
Aphids are insects with a sex determination model based on the presence of two X chromosomes (XX) in females and a single X chromosome (XO) in males. Previous studies suggested that X chromosome loss during male determination was random and that both X chromosomes have the same probability to be inherited in males.
Biological invasions, i.e. the spread of introduced, non-native species, not only serve as ecological model systems, but also bring out the importance of economic activities on ecological processes. Two recent books have shown the extent and variety of the interaction of economics with invasion science and also the variety of approaches to tackling these problems.
PORTLAND, Ore. — Modern medicine's ability to save lives through organ transplantation has been revolutionized by the development of drugs that prevent the human body from rejecting the transplanted organ.
But those antirejection drugs have their own side effects — sometimes serious.