PHILADELPHIA - Like yoga for office drones, cells do have coping strategies for stress. Heat, lack of nutrients, oxygen radicals – all can wreak havoc on the delicate internal components of a cell, potentially damaging it beyond repair. Proteins called HSPs (heat shock proteins) allow cells to survive stress-induced damage. Scientists have long studied how HSPs work in order to harness their therapeutic potential.
Body
Pregnant women who catch the flu are at serious risk for flu-related complications, including death, and that risk far outweighs the risk of possible side effects from injectable vaccines containing killed virus, according to an extensive review of published research and data from previous flu seasons.
Influenza viruses evade infection-fighting antibodies by constantly changing the shape of their major surface protein. This shape-shifting, called antigenic drift, is why influenza vaccines—which are designed to elicit antibodies matched to each year's circulating virus strains—must be reformulated annually. Now, researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, have proposed a new explanation for the evolutionary forces that drive antigenic drift.
MALAWI—October 28, 2009—An analysis of three and half decades of maize research in African farming communities finds big benefits. A multi-country study, in Agricultural Economics, reports the significant role international maize research plays in reducing poverty. It finds that since the mid-1990s, more than one million people per year have escaped poverty through the adoption of new maize varieties.
Athletes who use anabolic steroids may gain muscle mass and strength, but they can also destroy their kidney function, according to a paper being presented at the American Society of Nephrology's 42nd Annual Meeting and Scientific Exposition in San Diego, CA. The findings indicate that the habitual use of steroids has serious harmful effects on the kidneys that were not previously recognized.
Athens, Ga. – Each year, the influenza virus evolves. And each year, public health officials try to predict what the new strain will be and how it will affect the population in order to best combat it.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have discovered what leads to two genes fusing together, a phenomenon that has been shown to cause prostate cancer to develop.
The study found that pieces of chromosome relocate near each other after exposure to the hormone androgen. This sets the scene for the gene fusion to occur. The finding is reported online Oct. 29 in Science Express.
Finally, an optical frequency comb that visibly lives up to its name.
Scientists at the University of Konstanz in Germany and the National Institute of Standards andTechnology (NIST) in the United States have built the first optical frequency comb—a tool for preciselymeasuring different frequencies of visible light—that actually looks like a comb.
A new report appearing in The Journal of Leukocyte Biology argues that human missions to Mars, as well as all other long-term space flights might be compromised by microbial hitchhikers, such as bacteria. That's because long-term space travel packs a one-two punch to astronauts: first it appears to weaken their immune systems; and second, it increases the virulence and growth of microbes.
Hanover, N.H.—At its most benign, the autoimmune disease scleroderma can discolor parts of the skin of its sufferers. At its most pernicious, it can thicken and harden their skin, their blood vessels, and their internal organs before, in many cases, killing them.
Researchers have shown how an antiviral protein produced by the immune system, dubbed tetherin, tames HIV and other viruses by literally putting them on a leash, to prevent their escape from infected cells. The insights reported in the October 30th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, allowed the research team to design a completely artificial protein -- one that did not resemble native tetherin in its sequence at all -- that could nonetheless put a similar stop to the virus.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Biologists have shown that independent but similar molecular changes turned a harmless digestive enzyme into a toxin in two unrelated species -- a shrew and a lizard -- giving each a venomous bite.
The work, described this week in the journal Current Biology by researchers at Harvard University, suggests that protein adaptation may be a highly predictable process, one that could eventually help discover other toxins across a wide array of species.
HOUSTON - A specific type of T helper cell awakens the immune system to the stealthy threat of cancer and triggers an attack of killer T cells custom-made to destroy the tumors, scientists from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report in the early online edition of the journal Immunity.
Since the completion of the human genome sequence, a question has baffled researchers studying gene control: How is it that humans, being far more complex than the lowly yeast, do not proportionally contain in our genome significantly more gene-control proteins?
As the nation copes with a shortage of vaccines for H1N1 influenza, a team of Alabama researchers have raised hopes that they have found an Achilles' heel for all strains of the flu—antioxidants. In an article appearing in the November 2009 print issue of the FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) they show that antioxidants—the same substances found in plant-based foods—might hold the key in preventing the flu virus from wreaking havoc on our lungs.