A bacterial strain that specifically targets tumours could soon be used as a vehicle to deliver drugs in frontline cancer therapy. The strain is expected to be tested in cancer patients in 2013.
Body
A potential vaccine against tuberculosis has been found to completely eliminate tuberculosis bacteria from infected tissues in some mice. The vaccine was created with a strain of bacteria that, due to the absence of a few genes, are unable to avoid its host's first-line immune response. Once this first-line defense has been activated, it triggers the more specific immune response that can protect against future infections.
JUPITER, FL, September 4, 2011 – In a joint study, scientists from The Scripps Research Institute and Harvard University's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have established a new class of anti-diabetic compound that targets a unique molecular switch.
The finding paves the way for the development of anti-diabetic therapeutics with minimal adverse side effects plaguing currently available drugs such as Avandia (rosiglitazone), scheduled to be removed from pharmacy shelves this fall due to concerns about increased risk of heart attack.
LA JOLLA, CA – September 4, 2011 – Starting with normal skin cells, scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have produced the first stem cells from endangered species. Such cells could eventually make it possible to improve reproduction and genetic diversity for some species, possibly saving them from extinction, or to bolster the health of endangered animals in captivity.
Genesis
An international team of researchers has found a group of mutations involved in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL), and showed that certain drugs, already in clinical use to treat other diseases, can eliminate the cells carrying these mutations.
Results* will be published next week in Nature Genetics and may promote the development of novel therapeutic approaches against leukemia.
Human colon stem cells have been identified and grown in a lab-plate for the first time. Thisachievement, made by researchers of the Colorectal Cancer Lab at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and published in Nature Medicine, is a crucial advance towards regenerative medicine.
Increased low-grade inflammation in the body resulting from obesity is widely viewed as contributing to type 2 diabetes. Going against this long-held belief, researchers from Children's Hospital Boston report that two proteins activated by inflammation are actually crucial for maintaining good blood sugar levels – and that boosting the activity of these proteins can normalize blood sugar in severely obese and diabetic mice.
Evolution adds and subtracts, and nowhere is this math more evident than in vertebrates, which are programmed to have five digits on each limb. Many species do not; birds have three but snakes have none at all.
Yale scientists now have a good handle on how these developmental changes are orchestrated in the embryo, but there is still one outstanding debate on birds: Which digits are they: a thumb with index and middle fingers, or the index, middle and ring fingers?
September 4, 2011 ─ (BRONX, NY) ─ Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University report in the September 4 online edition of Nature Medicine that they have developed a tuberculosis (TB) vaccine candidate that proved both potent and safe in animal studies.
A new genetic defect that predisposes people to acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplasia has been discovered. The mutations were found in the GATA2 gene. Among its several regulatory roles, the gene acts as a master control during the transition of primitive blood-forming cells into white blood cells.
The researchers started by studying four unrelated families who, over generations, have had several relatives with acute myeloid leukemia, a type of blood cancer. Their disease onset occurred from the teens to the early 40s. The course was rapid.
Johns Hopkins researchers say they have developed a formula to predict which heart transplant patients are at greatest risk of death in the year following their surgeries, information that could help medical teams figure out who would benefit most from the small number of available organs.
Northwestern University professor Dirk Brockmann and his group at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science have investigated the outcomes of a previously ignored mechanism in modeling how humans travel.
By challenging a long-held assumption, Brockmann, associate professor of engineering sciences and applied mathematics, hopes to create models that can more accurately predict the spread of disease and the spread of human-mediated bioinvasions.
Researchers from the University of Alberta say that the antioxidant resveratrol, found in fruits, nuts and red wine, , prevents a syndrome in some offspring that could lead to later health issues such as diabetes.
New research from the University of California, Davis, and the University of Colorado at Boulder puts an unexpected twist on how mitochondria, the energy-generating structures within cells, divide. The work, which could have implications for a wide range of diseases and conditions, was published today (Sept. 2) in the journal Science.
"It's a paradigm shift in cell biology," said Jodi Nunnari, professor and chair of molecular cell biology at UC Davis and a co-author of the paper.
Taking land-use models out of the lab for a test drive with the people who live the models gives scientists a new way to develop possible future scenarios.
James Millington, a former post-doctoral researcher at Michigan State University's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (CSIS) and now a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at King's College in London, has paired the relatively new use of agent-based land-use modeling with follow-up interviews with the stakeholders in those areas.