Sooty mangabeys, a type of African monkey, have intrigued scientists for years because they can survive infection by SIV, a relative of HIV, and not succumb to AIDS.
Researchers have identified a way some of sooty mangabeys' immune cells resist infection: they close the gates that SIV and HIV use to get into the cell. The findings may lead to strategies to help HIV-infected individuals cope better with infection.
The results are published online in the journal Nature Medicine.
ST. AUGUSTINE, TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO—Flower color in plants is determined by pigments such as aurones, anthocyanins, and carotenoids. Research has found that the ultimate color displayed is dependent not only on the pigment present, but also on other factors, including cell shape, presence of metal ions, and pH, among others. Information about the role of pH in creating color has allowed plant geneticists to engineer new hues, adding to the beauty and diversity of ornamental plants.
DURHAM, N.C. – An invasive cell that leads to fibrosis of the lungs may be stopped by cutting off its supply of sugar, according to researchers at Duke University Medical Center.
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), which affects about 100,000 people in the U.S. each year and leads to death within three years of diagnosis, has only one therapy in the U. S.: lung transplantation.
Scientists have discovered the tool that bacteria normally found in our mouths use to invade heart tissue, causing a dangerous and sometimes lethal infection of the heart known as endocarditis. The work raises the possibility of creating a screening tool – perhaps a swab of the cheek, or a spit test – to gauge a dental patient's vulnerability to the condition.
CORVALLIS, Ore. – After being hunted to local extinction more than a century ago and unable to remember their ancestral calving grounds, the southern right whales of mainland New Zealand are coming home.
A new study published today has shown for the first time that whales from a small surviving population around remote, sub-Antarctic islands have found their way back to the New Zealand mainland.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers have identified a protein long known to regulate gene expression as a potent suppressor of breast cancer growth. Their study, in the journal Oncogene, is the first to demonstrate how this protein, known as Runx3, accomplishes this feat.
Radiation after a mastectomy for women with advanced breast cancer saves lives, but almost half of these patients do not receive it. That is the conclusion of a new study published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. The study's results indicate that treatments that have proven their life-saving potential in clinical trials may not be available to many patients.
Canadian researchers have found that maternal multiple sclerosis (MS) is generally not associated with adverse delivery outcomes or risk to their offspring. Full findings now appear in Annals of Neurology, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Neurological Association.
While genetic inheritance is known to play a role in the multifactorial development of most diseases of the heart, there are also a number of clearly diagnosed cardiac conditions which owe their development to quite specific genetic abnormalities. When these genetic disorders affect the integrity of the heart's muscle they are known as a "cardiomyopathy"; when the disorder affects the heart's "excitability", it is known as a "channelopathy".
Sophia Antipolis, France: 27 June 2011: The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Working Group on Myocardial Function is calling for a redefinition of the term cardiac hypertrophy which is currently used to describe changes to the morphology (structure) of the heart. Instead the position paper, published online today in the European Journal of Heart Failure, suggests that use of the general term myocardial remodelling should be preferred.
A study from scientists at Queen Mary, University of London, sheds new light on why people who experience serious trauma or go through major surgery, can suffer organ damage in parts of the body which are seemingly unconnected to the injury.
The study, published today in Nature Immunology*, examines the way certain white blood cells, called neutrophils move out of blood vessels to defend damaged organs against injury or infection.
A class of anti-retroviral drugs commonly used to treat HIV, particularly in Africa and low income countries, can cause premature ageing, according to research published today in the journal Nature Genetics. The study shows that the drugs damage DNA in the patient's mitochondria – the 'batteries' which power their cells.
The findings may explain why HIV-infected people treated with antiretroviral drugs sometimes show advanced signs of frailty and age-associated diseases such as cardiovascular disease and dementia at an early age.
BOSTON—Having a lower percentage of body fat may not always lower your risk for heart disease and diabetes, according to a study by an international consortium of investigators, including two scientists from the Institute for Aging Research of Hebrew SeniorLife, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School (HMS).
Using the latest gene sequencing tools to examine so-called epigenetic influences on the DNA makeup of colon cancer, a Johns Hopkins team says its results suggest cancer treatment might eventually be more tolerable and successful if therapies could focus on helping cancer cells get back to normal in addition to strategies for killing them.
Using an innovative gene therapy technique called genome editing that hones in on the precise location of mutated DNA, scientists have treated the blood clotting disorder hemophilia in mice. This is the first time that genome editing, which precisely targets and repairs a genetic defect, has been done in a living animal and achieved clinically meaningful results.