NOD2 is a cytosolic pattern recognition receptor similar in structure and function to Toll like receptors (TLRs). It can recognize and respond to a component found in the cell wall of bacteria, muramyl dipeptide (MDP), and has been shown to play an important role in the innate immune response of macrophages to bacterial infections. However, the function of NOD2 in the gastrointestinal tract and the colon and its contribution of mutant NOD2 alleles to the pathogenesis of CD is still unclear.
Brain
The Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI) Stroke Research Group has developed a system to fast track stroke treatment which could benefit thousands of Australian stroke patients and save millions of dollars annually.
The system (called the Pre-hospital Acute Stroke Triage or PAST Protocol) reduces pre-hospital and emergency department delays to allow more stroke patients to receive brain saving thrombolysis or clot busting treatment within the three hour treatment window.
Philadelphia, PA, October 23, 2008 – We are all familiar with the question - "Are you a man or a mouse?" What if the answer is "a little of both"? Because of the power of molecular genetics research in animals and the maturation of animal models, the path to identifying genes involved in particular types of behavior, such as fear, is much clearer in animals than in humans. There is new evidence that the genes implicated in these animal models may be directly applicable to humans.
Philadelphia, PA, October 23, 2008 – Are genes destiny? Alternatively, are we simply the products of our environment? There is a growing sense that neither of these two possibilities fully captures the essence of the risk for psychiatric disorders. New light is being shed on the complex interaction of genetic and environmental factors as the result of growth in the field of epigenetics.
The number of science graduates has been declining over most of Europe but there are no short term solutions to reverse a trend that threatens the continent's longer term prosperity and competitiveness. This established drain away from science and engineering taking place both at university level and afterwards among young researchers can only be reversed by better understanding of the forces and trends within the global S&E (science and engineering) workforce and labour market as a whole.
LIVERPOOL, UK – 23 October 2008: Scientists at the University of Liverpool have discovered dramatic differences in the memory performance of patients with damage to the hippocampus, an area of the human brain key to memory.
The urgent need for treatment doesn't end when a person regains a pulse after suffering sudden cardiac arrest — healthcare providers need to move quickly into post-cardiac arrest care to keep a person alive and ensure the best outcome.
That's the conclusion of the American Heart Association science advisory published today in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
October 23, 2008 (Oakland, Calif.) - Depressed pregnant women have twice the risk of preterm delivery than pregnant women with no symptoms of depression, according to a new study by the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research. The study is published online in the Oxford University Press's journal Human Reproduction on behalf of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.
According to trials, a new obesity drug, Tesofensine, which may be launched on the world market in a few years, can produce weight loss twice that of currently approved obesity drugs. The Danish company Neurosearch and a number of researchers at the Faculty of Life Sciences at University of Copenhagen are behind the promising findings.
Suicide rates in those aged 10-19 in the UK declined by 28% in the seven year period from 1997-2003, shows a study published today in The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. The study, carried out by researchers at the University of Manchester, showed that the decline was particularly marked in young males, where rates declined by 35%.
A drug which was developed in Cambridge and initially designed to treat a form of leukaemia has also proven effective against combating the debilitating neurological disease multiple sclerosis (MS).
The study, led by researchers from the University of Cambridge, has found that alemtuzumab not only stops MS from advancing in patients with early stage active relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) but may also restore lost function caused by the disease. The findings were published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Much of human DNA is the genetic equivalent of e-mail spam: short repeated sequences that have no obvious function other than making more of themselves.
After starting out in our primate ancestors 65 million years ago, one type of repetitive DNA called an Alu retrotransposon now takes up 10 percent of our genome, with about one million copies. Roughly every 20th newborn baby has a new Alu retrotransposon somewhere in its DNA, scientists have estimated.
(Boston)-In the October 14th edition of Science Signaling researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia/University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and The University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine have shown that the development of epilepsy in adult rats is linked to functional changes in the expression of alpha 1 containing GABA-A receptors, the main inhibitory neurotransmitter receptor in the brain, that may be dependent upon BDNF-induced activation of the Janus kinase (JAK)/signal transducers and activators of transcription
Working as part of a multi-institutional collaboration, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have assembled the most complete catalog to date of the genetic changes underlying the most common form of lung cancer. The research, published Oct. 23 in Nature, helps lay the foundation for more personalized diagnosis and treatment of a disease that is the leading cause of U.S. cancer deaths.
DURHAM, N.C. -- A brain isn't born fully organized. It builds its abilities through experience, making physical connections between neurons and organizing circuits to store and retrieve information in milliseconds for years afterwards.
Now that process has been caught in the act for the first time by a Duke University research team that watched a naïve brain organize itself to interpret images of motion.