Computational biologists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have shown that proteins have an intrinsic ability to change shape, and this is required for their biological activity. This shape-changing also allows the small molecules that are attracted to a given protein to select the structure that permits the best binding. That premise could help in drug discovery and in designing compounds that will have the most impact on protein function to better treat a host of diseases.
Body
DALLAS – Aug. 19, 2009 – Immunology researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found that bacteria present in the human gut help initiate the body's defense mechanisms against Toxoplasma gondii, the parasite responsible for toxoplasmosis.
Toxoplasmosis is generally a mild infection, but it can have serious and potentially fatal effects in pregnant women, their fetuses and others with weakened immune systems.
Researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine have destroyed prostate cancer tumors in mice by injecting them with specially-coated, minuscule carbon tubes and then superheating the tubes with a brief zap of a laser.
The procedure, which used DNA-encased, multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) to treat human prostate cancer tumors in mice, left only a small burn on the skin that healed within days.
Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is an uncommon chronic liver disease characterized by progressive inflammation and destruction of the bile ducts. The disease progresses slowly, usually leading to biliary cirrhosis, portal hypertension and liver failure over a 10-15 year period. PSC is a common cause of adult cholestatic liver diseases and a primary source behind many of the liver transplantations in U.S. adults. At least 70% of PSC cases are associated with chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), usually ulcerative colitis.
AURORA, Co—A study published in the August 2009 edition of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology found that non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients could be more accurately staged at diagnosis by taking into account the level of visceral pleura invasion (VPI). VPI is the extension of a tumor beyond the elastic layer of the visceral pleura.
The ability to specifically target and modify genes in the mouse allows researchers to use this small rodent to study how certain genes contribute to human disease. A common method used to make genetic changes in mice and cells is called site-specific recombination, where two DNA strands are exchanged. The two strands may contain very different sequences, but are designated at their ends by specific target sequences that are not commonly found elsewhere in the genome. A protein, called a recombinase, cuts the DNA at its target sites and rearranges it.
Reston, Va. — Computed tomography angiography (CTA) can identify abnormalities and injury beyond the pulmonary arteries, including broken bones and heart disease, according to a study published in the September issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR).
Reston, Va. — Breast MRI allows physicians to evaluate suspicious lesions using a variety of variables. Researchers have found though that computer-aided kinetic information can help significantly in distinguishing benign from malignant suspicious breast lesions on MRI, according to a study published in the September issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR).
New research at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston suggests that ancient Chinese herbal formulas used primarily for cardiovascular indications including heart disease may produce large amounts of artery-widening nitric oxide. Findings of the preclinical study by scientists in the university's Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases (IMM) appear in the journal Free Radical Biology & Medicine.
Some children with a history of severe milk allergy can safely drink milk and consume other dairy products every day, according to research led by the Johns Hopkins Children's Center and published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
Thinking "outside the medicine cabinet" is paying off in Australia, where a doctor-pharmacist partnership is reducing hospitalizations for heart failure — one of the most expensive conditions to treat — researchers report in Circulation: Heart Failure.
In the American Heart Association journal, researchers describe a collaborative model for ensuring heart failure patients take their medicines properly. The rate of hospitalization was cut by 45 percent in the first year of being part of a collaborative medicines review service.
From 1995 to 2006 the rate of antibiotic prescriptions for acute respiratory tract infections decreased significantly, attributable in part to a decline in ambulatory visits for ear infections in young children, according to a study in JAMA. But prescription rates for broad spectrum antibiotics, namely azithromycin and quinolones, increased substantially during the study period.
From 1995 to 2006, hospital 30-day death rates decreased significantly for Medicare patients hospitalized for a heart attack, as did the variation in the rate between hospitals, according to a study in the August 19 issue of JAMA.
When estrogen-lowering drugs no longer control metastatic breast cancer, the opposite strategy might work. Raising estrogen levels benefited 30 percent of women whose metastatic breast cancer no longer responded to standard anti-estrogen treatment, according to research conducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and collaborating institutions.
A new study has concluded that one key task of the immune system, the ability of vitamin D to regulate anti-bactericidal proteins, is so important that is has been conserved through almost 60 million years of evolution and is shared only by primates and humans.
The fact that this vitamin-D mediated immune response has been retained through millions of years of evolutionary selection, and is still found in species ranging from squirrel monkeys to baboons and humans, suggests that it must be critical to their survival, researchers say.