Chemicals News and Research

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Nanostrings bring 'artificial noses' closer to reality

These days, chemical analysts are expected to track down even single molecules.

23 Apr 2009

Using combinatorial libraries to engineer genetic circuits advances synthetic biology

Streamlining the construction of synthetic gene networks has led a team of Boston University researchers to develop a technique that couples libraries of diversified components with computer modeling to guide predictable gene network construction without the back and forth tweaking.

22 Apr 2009

Scientists develop drugs to block skin cancer protein

Scientists have developed a potent group of potential drug candidates to treat skin cancer, according to a study in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry today (Thursday).

22 Apr 2009

Organic biosensor detects onset of acute myocardial ischemia

Engineering researchers at the University of Arkansas have fabricated and tested a unique biosensor that measures concentrations of potassium and hydrogen ions in the human heart with high specificity.

22 Apr 2009

Researchers create chemicals that kill the most deadly malaria-causing parasite

Researchers at the University of Leeds have developed chemicals which kill the most deadly malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium falciparum - including those resistant to existing drugs.

22 Apr 2009

Grapes may prevent heart health risks beyond the simple blood pressure-lowering impact

Can a grape-enriched diet prevent the downhill sequence of heart failure after years of high blood pressure?

22 Apr 2009

New Dengue virus discovery could lead to development of anti-dengue drugs

Doctors have no specific drugs to treat dengue fever, a viral illness spread by mosquitoes that sickens 50 million to 100 million people worldwide each year. Instead, the only treatments they can recommend for this painful and sometimes fatal illness (20,000 deaths globally each year) are fluids, rest and non-aspirin pain and fever reducers.

22 Apr 2009

Researchers study why people who are obese become hypertensive

When Francois Abboud began his work at the University of Iowa in 1960, little was known about the constant physiological chatter between the brain and the blood vessels.

22 Apr 2009

Exposure to combination of two pesticides increase risk of Parkinson's by 75 percent

The fertile soil of California's Central Valley has long made it famous as one of the nation's prime crop-growing regions.

22 Apr 2009

A nanoscale motor in the ear

Utah and Texas researchers have learned how quiet sounds are magnified by bundles of tiny, hair-like tubes atop "hair cells" in the ear: when the tubes dance back and forth, they act as "flexoelectric motors" that amplify sound mechanically.

22 Apr 2009

Discovery of agents that speed up destruction of amyloid beta proteins

Taking a new approach to the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer's disease, a research team led by investigators at the Mayo Clinic campus in Florida has shown that druglike compounds can speed up destruction of the amyloid beta (A-beta) proteins that form plaque in the brains of patients with the disorder.

22 Apr 2009

Statins may be useful in patients with tamoxifen-resistant breast cancer

Breast cancer cells in the laboratory that don't respond to tamoxifen may be producing high amounts of cholesterol in order to provide a kind of shield against the drug, say researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC).

20 Apr 2009

Marine derived compound may lead to new leukemia treatments

Kapakahines, marine-derived natural products isolated from a South Pacific sponge in trace quantities, have shown anti-leukemia potential, but studies have been all but stalled by kapakahines' lack of availability.

20 Apr 2009

Laughter improves health

The connection between the body, mind and spirit has been the subject of conventional scientific inquiry for some 20 years.

20 Apr 2009

Jet lag disrupts sleep by throwing two neural centers out of sync

New research by scientists in the U.S. has revealed that the disrupted sleep which results from jet lag and shift work occurs in two separate but linked groups of neurons below the hypothalamus at the base of the brain.

19 Apr 2009

Singapore scientists synthesize gold to shed light on cells' inner workings

Highly fluorescent gold nanoclusters for sub-cellular imaging have been synthesized by researchers at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN), one of the research institutes of Singapore's A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research).

16 Apr 2009

Canadian experts on irritable bowel syndrome

While more than six per cent of Canadians suffer from this troublesome disease - characterized by on-going abdominal pain, discomfort, bloating, and severe bouts of either diarrhoea or constipation - most Canadians, including many physicians, know little about it.

16 Apr 2009

Autopsy study links prostate cancer to single rogue cell

One cell…one initial set of genetic changes - that's all it takes to begin a series of events that lead to metastatic cancer.

16 Apr 2009

Autopsy study links prostate cancer to single rogue cell

One cell...one initial set of genetic changes - that's all it takes to begin a series of events that lead to metastatic cancer. Now, Johns Hopkins experts have tracked how the cancer process began in 33 men with prostate cancer who died of the disease. Culling information from autopsies, their study points to a set of genetic defects in a single cell that are different for each person's cancer.

16 Apr 2009

Wrist acupuncture prevents postoperative nausea and vomiting

Up to 80 percent of patients who have surgery complain of nausea and vomiting afterwards, but stimulating an acupoint in their wrists can help reduce these symptoms, finds a new evidence review.

14 Apr 2009