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Sildenafil may help protect heart from high blood pressure damage

Johns Hopkins and other researchers report what is believed to be the first direct evidence in lab animals that the erectile dysfunction drug sildenafil amplifies the effects of a heart-protective protein.

5 Jan 2009

Researchers gain new insight into cancer metastasis

Few things are as tiresome as house hunting and moving. Unfortunately, metastatic cancer cells have the relocation process down pat. Tripping nimbly from one abode to another, these migrating cancer cells often prove far more deadly than the original tumor.

5 Jan 2009

Old Digitalis-based drugs show promise as a treatment for cancer

Digitalis-based drugs like digoxin have been used for centuries to treat patients with irregular heart rhythms and heart failure and are still in use today.

5 Jan 2009

Molecular insight into how a heart failure drug in clinical trials works

Individuals who have persistent high blood pressure are at increased risks of a number of serious medical conditions, including heart failure.

5 Jan 2009

New methods for studying DNA repair and protein modification

This month's issue of Cold Spring Harbor Protocols features two articles detailing experimental methods for the analysis of molecular processes involved in DNA repair and post-translational modification of proteins.

5 Jan 2009

Metadherin gene plays dual role in breast cancers with poor prognosis

A new study reveals that the metadherin gene (MTDH) plays a role in both cancer metastasis and resistance to chemotherapy.

5 Jan 2009

Cylene Pharmaceuticals starts CX-4945 trial - first-in class inhibitor of CK2

Cylene Pharmaceuticals announced today that it has initiated a Phase I clinical trial of its oral CK2 protein kinase inhibitor, CX-4945, in patients with advanced solid tumors, Castleman's disease, or multiple myeloma.

5 Jan 2009

Discovery of new tumor suppressor for lung cancer

Cancer and cell biology experts at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have identified a new tumor suppressor that may help scientists develop more targeted drug therapies to combat lung cancer.

5 Jan 2009

Researchers show mechanisms that regulate DNA damage control and replication

Scientists at Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) have demonstrated important new roles for the protein kinase complex Cdc7/Dbf4 or Cdc7/Drf1 (Ddk) in monitoring damage control during DNA replication and reinitiating replication following DNA repair.

5 Jan 2009

Discovery of 'on switch' for cell death signaling mechanism

Scientists at Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) have determined the structure of the interactions between proteins that form the heart of the death inducing signaling complex (DISC), which is responsible for triggering apoptosis (programmed cell death).

5 Jan 2009

Discovery of new syndrome associated with severe congenital neutropenia

A team of scientists has discovered a new syndrome associated with severe congenital neutropenia (SCN), a rare disorder in which children lack sufficient infection-fighting white cells, and identified the genetic cause of the syndrome: mutations in the gene Glucose-6-phosphatase, catalytic subunit 3 (G6PC3).

5 Jan 2009

Discovery of new genetic markers for ulcerative colitis

An international team led by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers has identified genetic markers associated with risk for ulcerative colitis.

5 Jan 2009

Dormant cancer cells rely on cellular autophagy to survive

A single tumor-suppressing gene is a key to understanding, and perhaps killing, dormant ovarian cancer cells that persist after initial treatment only to reawaken years later, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report in the December Journal of Clinical Investigation.

5 Jan 2009

Culprit found in rare type of baldness

Scientists in Beijing say they have discovered a genetic cause for a certain type of premature baldness and they suggest their discovery offers hope in future that those who inherit this rare type of baldness will eventually be able to keep their hair.

5 Jan 2009

Discovery of potential important pathway for controlling cell loss and survival in Parkinson's disease

Neurologists have observed for decades that Lewy bodies, clumps of aggregated proteins inside cells, appear in the brains of patients with Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases.

1 Jan 2009

Researchers use nanoparticles to make 3-D DNA nanotubes

Arizona State University researchers Hao Yan and Yan Liu imagine and assemble intricate structures on a scale almost unfathomably small.

1 Jan 2009

Study links MiR-29 molecule to muscle maturation, muscle cancer

Researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center have discovered that a molecule implicated in leukemia and lung cancer is also important in muscle repair and in a muscle cancer that strikes mainly children.

1 Jan 2009

Scientists genetically grab PTEN by the tail to curtail cancer

When researchers look inside human cancer cells for the whereabouts of an important tumor-suppressor, they often catch the protein playing hooky, lolling around in cellular broth instead of muscling its way out to the cells' membranes and foiling cancer growth.

1 Jan 2009

Laminin-111 shows potential for congenital muscular dystrophy

Current research suggests laminin, a protein that helps cells stick together, may lead to enhanced muscle repair in muscular dystrophy.

1 Jan 2009

Lung cancer cells activate inflammation to induce metastasis

A research team from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine has identified a protein produced by cancerous lung epithelial cells that enhances metastasis by stimulating the activity of inflammatory cells.

1 Jan 2009