Body | Page 3977 | Science Codex

Vaccines could help what's ailing fish

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists are developing vaccines to help protect healthy farm-raised catfish against key diseases.

Working as a team, microbiologist Phillip H. Klesius and molecular biologists Julia Pridgeon and Craig Shoemaker with USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) at the agency's Aquatic Animal Health Research Unit in Auburn, Ala., and Joyce J. Evans, aquatic pathologist at the Auburn unit's lab in Chestertown, Md., are developing vaccines against Streptococcus iniae, S. agalactiae and other pathogens.

Genetics work could lead to advances in fertility for women

Princeton scientists have identified genes responsible for controlling reproductive life span in worms and found they may control genes regulating similar functions in humans.

The work suggests that someday researchers may be able to develop ways to maintain fertility in humans, allowing women who want to delay having children to preserve that capacity and extend their reproduction, and to prevent maternal age-related birth defects.

Swine flu variant linked to fatal cases might have disabled the clearing mechanism of lungs

A variant of last year's pandemic influenza linked to fatal cases carried a mutation that enabled it to infect a different subset of cells lining the airway, according to new research. The study, due to be published next week in the Journal of Virology, suggests that the mutant virus could have impaired the lungs' ability to clear out germs.

Scorpion has welcome sting for heart bypass patients

A toxin found in the venom of the Central American bark scorpion (Centruroides margaritatus) could hold the key to reducing heart bypass failures, according to research from the University of Leeds.

The study, published online in Cardiovascular Research, reports that one of the scorpion's toxins, margatoxin, is at least 100 times more potent at preventing neointimal hyperplasia – the most comon cause of bypass graft failure - than any other known compound.

Personalized treatment may help some liver cancer patients

A more personalized treatment for people with a type of metastatic liver cancer --hepatocellular carcinoma -- may be possible by targeting the protein c-Met, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the number three cause of cancer deaths in the world.

Childhood cancer survivors face long-term risk of GI complications, study finds

Childhood cancer survivors face long-term risk of GI complications, study finds

Simple blood test helps predict chronic kidney disease

Simple blood test helps predict chronic kidney disease

Measuring three biomarkers in a single blood sample may improve physicians' ability to identify patients at high risk of developing chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

Risk gene for severe heart disease discovered

Research led by Klaus Stark and Christian Hengstenberg of the University of Regensburg identified a common variant of the cardiovascular heat shock protein gene, HSPB7, which was found to increase risk for dilated cardiomyopathy by almost 50%. Their paper appears on October 28 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics.

Stanford study links cancer to loss of protein that hooks skin cells together

STANFORD, Calif. — In a study to be published online Oct. 21 in PLoS Genetics, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have implicated the lack of a protein important in hooking our skin cells together in the most common variety of skin cancer. Depletion of this protein, called Perp, could be an early indicator of skin cancer development, and could be useful for staging and establishing prognoses.

Protein injection shows promise in lowering elevated triglycerides

Injecting a protein that helps break down triglycerides may someday help treat an inherited form of high triglycerides, according to a new study in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, an American Heart Association journal.

Triglyceride is a type of fat in the blood. Elevated levels in the blood — hypertriglyceridemia — have been linked to coronary artery disease.

Treating metabolic syndrome, undergoing carotid angioplasty

Treating metabolic syndrome and undergoing carotid angioplasty may prevent recurrent stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA), according to revised American Heart Association/American Stroke Association guidelines.

Last updated in 2006, the evidence-based guidelines for doctors will be published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Cholesterol-lowering drug shrinks enlarged prostates in hamster model

Boston, Mass. - A cholesterol-lowering drug reduced the enlarged prostates of hamsters to the same extent as a drug commonly used to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), report researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and their colleagues in the October issue of the Journal of Urology. Together, the drugs worked even better.

Entire issue of scientific journal devoted to center headed by Scripps Research Scientists

LA JOLLA, CA, October 21, 2010 — A multi-institutional consortium led by The Scripps Research Institute scientists, the Joint Center for Structural Genomics (JCSG), is the sole focus of a special issue of the journal Acta Crystallographica Section F. This is the first time in the history of the monthly journal, which publishes peer-reviewed crystallography and structural biology articles, that an entire issue is devoted to the works of a single scientific center.

Malaria-transmitting mosquito evolving, NIH grantees find

WHAT: Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have found that the major malaria-transmitting mosquito species, Anopheles gambiae, is evolving into two separate species with different traits, a development that could both complicate malaria control efforts and potentially require new disease prevention methods. Their findings were published in back-to-back articles in the October 22 issue of the journal Science.

Study details molecular structure of major cell signaling pathway

Study details molecular structure of major cell signaling pathway

(Embargoed) Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have reported the exact molecular structure and mechanisms of a major cell signaling pathway that serves a broad range of functions in humans.