PITTSBURGH, June 29 – The current H1N1 swine flu strain has genetic roots in an illness that sickened pigs at the 1918 Cedar Rapids Swine Show in Iowa, report infectious disease experts at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health in the New England Journal of Medicine. Their paper, published online today and slated for the July 16 print issue, describes H1N1's nearly century-long and often convoluted journey, which may include the accidental resurrection of an extinct strain.
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The influenza virus that wreaked worldwide havoc in 1918-1919 founded a viral dynasty that persists to this day, according to scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. In an article published online on June 29 by the New England Journal of Medicine, authors Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., Jeffery K. Taubenberger, M.D., Ph.D., and David M.
TEMPE, Ariz. – There is no way to know how the newest strain of the H1N1 influenza virus will behave in the future. But scientists, notably those working at the intersections of epidemiology, mathematics, modeling and statistics, are monitoring it closely to identify anomalies on its pattern of spread while evaluating ways of mitigating its impact.
Accelerated snowmelt--precipitated by desert dust blowing into the mountains--changes how alpine plants respond to seasonal climate cues that regulate their life cycles, according to results of a new study reported this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). These results indicate that global warming may have a greater influence on plants' annual growth cycles than previously thought.
Current mountain dust levels are five times greater than they were before the mid-19th century, due in large part to increased human activity in deserts.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--A new computer model developed at MIT can help solve a problem that has plagued drug companies trying to develop promising new treatments made of antibodies: Such drugs have a relatively short shelf life because they tend to clump together, rendering them ineffective.
Antibodies are the most rapidly growing class of human drugs, with the potential to treat cancer, arthritis and other chronic inflammatory and infectious diseases. About 200 such drugs are now in clinical trials, and a few are already on the market.
LA JOLLA, CA, June 29, 2009 The more than 1.5 million Americans with systemic lupus erythematosus (or lupus) suffer from a variety of symptoms that flare and subside, often including painful or swollen joints, extreme fatigue, skin rashes, fever, and kidney problems. Researchers at The Scripps Research Institute have now identified the main trigger for the development of this disease.
In a study with important consequences for studies on the effects of chemicals on steroid responses in humans, a team of French and American scientists, including Michael E. Baker, PhD, professor in UC San Diego's Department of Medicine, Division of Nephrology-Hypertension, have found that – contrary to earlier assumptions – enzymes used for the synthesis of steroids in insects, snails, octopuses and corals are unrelated to those used in humans.
New Rochelle, NY, June 29, 2009—Exercise requires the integrated activity of every organ and tissue in the body, and understanding how these respond to the decreased oxygen levels present at moderate to high altitude is the focus of the current special issue of High Altitude Medicine & Biology, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). The entire issue is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/hamGuest Editor Peter D.
A UCSF study for the treatment of heart failure after heart attack found that the extract derived from bone marrow cells is as effective as therapy using bone marrow stem cells for improving cardiac function, decreasing the formation of scar tissue and improving cardiac pumping capacity after heart attack.
Findings were published online and in the July 2009 issue of the Journal of Molecular Therapy. The cover of the journal features a microscope image of cells from the UCSF study.
Whether or not to use expensive cancer therapies that typically produce only a relatively short extension of survival is a serious ethical dilemma in the U.S. that needs to be addressed by the oncology community, according to a commentary published online June 29 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Melanoma is the most serious form of skin cancer, diagnosed in more than 50,000 new patients in the United States annually. While the rate of incidences continues to rise, survival rate has not improved and the race is on to find the genetic and cellular changes driving melanoma and to devise new means of detection and treatment.
Pig heart valves used to replace defective aortic valves in human patients failed much earlier and more often than expected, says a report from cardiac surgeons at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. This is the first report to demonstrate this potential problem, the researchers say.
If you are a cricket and it is a dry season on the San Pedro River in Arizona, on your nighttime ramblings to eat leaves, you are more likely to be ambushed by thirsty wolf spiders, or so a June 19 study suggests, published in the journal Ecology, and featured as an editor's choice in the journal Science.
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have zeroed in on the genes responsible for changing flower color, an area of research that began with Gregor Mendel's studies of the garden pea in the 1850's.
Dallas, TX (June 29, 2009) -- A team of experts in biomechanics and physiology that conducted experiments on Oscar Pistorius, the South African bilateral amputee track athlete, have just published their findings in the Journal of Applied Physiology. Some of their previously confidential findings were presented to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland in May of 2008. Other findings are now being released for the first time.