Protein C News and Research

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Dopamine improves long-term memory

The feel-good hormone dopamine improves long-term memory. This is the finding of a team lead by Emrah D-zel, neuroscientist at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases and the University of Magdeburg.

9 Nov 2012

HCT 1026 may help stem debilitating effects of muscular dystrophy

Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute researchers have found that an experimental compound may help stem the debilitating effects of muscular dystrophy by restoring normal blood flow to muscles affected by the genetic disorder.

9 Nov 2012

UIC researchers develop transgenic Alzheimer's mouse with apoE4 gene

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have developed a transgenic mouse that carries a human gene known to increase risk of Alzheimer's 15-fold. This new mouse mimics the genetics of the human disease more closely than any of the dozen existing mouse models and may prove more useful in the development of candidate drugs to prevent or treat the disease.

9 Nov 2012

New understanding of how noise can break critical tip link protein structure in inner ear cells

Researchers have mapped the precise 3-D atomic structure of a thin protein filament critical for cells in the inner ear and calculated the force necessary to pull it apart.

8 Nov 2012

ACS Prized Science video features advances in personalized medicine

Personalized medicine - the promise of customizing treatments that will work best for each individual patient - could get a boost from advances in understanding how the proteins that help determine health and disease take the three-dimensional shapes needed to work in the body. That's the message of the latest episode of the 2012 edition of a popular video series from the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society.

8 Nov 2012

Simple biomarker model to predict heart failure risk

The most widely used models for predicting heart failure rely on a complex combination of lifestyle, demographic, and cardiovascular risk factor information.

8 Nov 2012

Two new EU Member States now represented within TRANSVAC services platform

In addition to the initial panel of nine services, the TRANSVAC transnational access platform has integrated in July 2012 five additional groups which provide their services to users on a free and paid basis. Two new European Union (EU) Member States are now represented within the platform of services: France and Portugal.

8 Nov 2012

Researchers discover cellular pathway that causes lung-damaging inflammation in CF

Vancouver researchers have discovered the cellular pathway that causes lung-damaging inflammation in cystic fibrosis (CF), and that reducing the pathway's activity also decreases inflammation.

8 Nov 2012

Washington University, SRI investigators launch Global Metabolomic Initiative

Investigators at Washington University and The Scripps Research Institute have announced the launch of a "Global Metabolomic Initiative" to facilitate meta-analyses on studies of the metabolism of bacteria, yeast, plants, animals and people.

7 Nov 2012

WU researchers to study blood-clotting disorders

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have received a $9 million grant to investigate blood-clotting disorders. From heart attacks and strokes to uncontrolled bleeding, clotting disorders cause more deaths each year in the United States than all types of cancer combined.

7 Nov 2012

Atpif1 gene regulates hemoglobin synthesis during red blood cell formation

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have discovered a new gene that regulates hemoglobin synthesis during red blood cell formation. The findings advance the biomedical community's understanding and treatment of human anemias and mitochondrial disorders.

7 Nov 2012

Researchers sequence the DNA of 6,700 exomes of cystic fibrosis patients

A multi-institutional team of researchers has sequenced the DNA of 6,700 exomes, the portion of the genome that contains protein-coding genes, as part of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI)-funded Exome Sequencing Project, one of the largest medical sequencing studies ever undertaken.

7 Nov 2012

Elafin protein protects against inflammatory diseases

This protection is provided by a human protein, Elafin, which is artificially introduced into dairy produce bacteria (Lactococcus lactis and Lactobacillus casei). In time, this discovery could be useful for individuals suffering from chronic inflammatory diseases such as Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis.

7 Nov 2012

Scientists show how sorafenib can be dangerous to the heart

Scientists for the first time have evidence showing how a widely used type of "targeted" cancer drug can be dangerous to the heart.

7 Nov 2012

Excessive turnover of placental cells may trigger unnatural increase in blood pressure

Excessive turnover of cells in the placenta may trigger an unnatural increase in blood pressure that puts mother and baby at risk, researchers say.

7 Nov 2012

Treatment with AMG 145 reduces LDL cholesterol

Amgen today announced that results from the LAPLACE-TIMI 57 and MENDEL Phase 2 studies evaluating AMG 145 in hypercholesterolemic patients with or without statins, respectively, showed that treatment with AMG 145 resulted in a statistically significant reduction in low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol.

7 Nov 2012

Link between SFRP4 protein and risk of type 2 diabetes

When a patient is diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, the disease has usually already progressed over several years and damage to areas such as blood vessels and eyes has already taken place. To find a test that indicates who is at risk at an early stage would be valuable, as it would enable preventive treatment to be put in place.

7 Nov 2012

Measuring blood levels of hs-CRP could help identify men at increased risk for death from cancer

Measuring blood levels of high-sensitive C-reactive protein, an important marker of inflammation, in apparently cancer-free men could potentially help identify those at increased risk for death from cancer, in particular lung cancer, according to data published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

7 Nov 2012

Loyola announces 2012 Junior and Senior Scientist of the Year during St. Albert's Day

Katherine L. Knight, PhD, one of the nation's leading immune system researchers, has been named 2012 Senior Scientist of the Year at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. Sakthivel Sadayappan, PhD, FAHA, who is doing groundbreaking research on a protein that is critical for the normal functioning of the heart, has been named 2012 Junior Scientist of the Year.

7 Nov 2012

AMG 145 can reduce LDL cholesterol levels by up to 66% after 12 weeks

For many people with high cholesterol, statins serve as the first line of treatment. However, some patients are unable to effectively reduce their low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL cholesterol) or "bad cholesterol" levels with statins, the most commonly used medication to treat high cholesterol, due to their bodies' inability to tolerate or sufficiently respond to the medicine.

7 Nov 2012