Biochemistry News and Research

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Discovery may lead to therapies to treat the neurological disease

Opening a window to understand the molecular basis of a hereditary ataxia, Dartmouth Medical School researchers have identified an enzyme activity that is inactivated in all reported mutant forms of a disease protein. The discovery may lead to therapies to treat the neurological disease.

29 May 2005

Brain fatty acid levels linked to depression

A group of researchers from Israel has discovered that rats exhibiting the signs of depression have increased levels of the omega-6 fatty acid, arachidonic acid, in their brains. The details of their findings appear in the June issue of the Journal of Lipid Research, an American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology journal.

25 May 2005

New polysaccharide may help combat multidrug resistance in cancer

In a recent study published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, scientists report that a molecule previously thought to play a purely structural and inert role in cells is actually involved in multidrug resistance in cancer.

22 May 2005

Drugs that block the enzyme Odc prevent the onset of cancers

The drug DFMO prevents cancer in laboratory models of lymphoma but fails to kill existing cancerous cells that have lost the ability to self-destruct, according to investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

16 May 2005

More health benefits from green tea

Green tea appears to protect against cancer by affecting a "promiscuous" protein that pharmaceutical experts are already targeting in an effort to develop a new drug to stop the disease, scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center have found.

16 May 2005

Clues about how alcoholic behavior is “switched” on

As part of an ongoing effort to understand the biochemical basis of alcohol abuse, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have published two studies on how modulating receptors for dopamine - a chemical “signaler” in the brain’s reward circuits - affects drinking behavior in mice and rats.

9 May 2005

Scientists take aim at virulent bacteria by decoding machinery of key control enzyme

By deciphering the ingenious mechanism used by a particular enzyme to modify bacterial chromosome chemistry, scientists have come a step closer to designing a new kind of drug that could stop virulent bacterial infections in their tracks. Their research will be published in the May 6 issue of the journal Cell.

5 May 2005

Two-photon imaging gives real-time video of cells in living tissue

Biologists have a new tool to track and videotape cells moving about inside living tissue.

3 May 2005

Researchers make new advances in determining the structure of all possible DNA sequences

Oregon State University researchers have made significant new advances in determining the structure of all possible DNA sequences – a discovery that in one sense takes up where Watson and Crick left off, after outlining in 1953 the double-helical structure of this biological blueprint for life.

3 May 2005

Food fried in vegetable oil contains a highly toxic compound - HNE (4-hydroxy-trans-2-nonenal)

University of Minnesota researchers A. Saari Csallany, a professor of food chemistry and nutritional biochemistry, and graduate student Christine Seppanen have shown that when highly unsaturated vegetable oils are heated at frying temperature (365 F) for extended periods--or even for half an hour--a highly toxic compound, HNE (4-hydroxy-trans-2-nonenal) forms in the oil.

2 May 2005

Researchers determine mechanism of action of chemotherapy drug motexafin gadolinium

The chemotherapy drug motexafin gadolinium (brand name: Xcytrin, manufactured by Pharmacyclics, Inc.) works to thwart cancer cells by disrupting key enzymes involved in cellular metabolism, according to a team of researchers led by Joseph Hacia, Ph.D., assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California.

1 May 2005

New centre launched to investigate link between human sugars and disease

A multidisciplinary centre launched today will promote a far broader understanding of the role sugars play in human disease, scientists say.

28 Apr 2005

Molecular models advance the fight against malaria

Research from Dartmouth Medical School, demonstrating how malaria parasites form mutations that make them stubbornly resistant to drug therapy, may hold the key to a new treatments for a disease that afflicts more than half a billion people worldwide.

25 Apr 2005

Scientists have, for the first time, induced a state of reversible metabolic hibernation in mice

Scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have, for the first time, induced a state of reversible metabolic hibernation in mice. This achievement, the first demonstration of "hibernation on demand" in a mammal, ultimately could lead to new ways to treat cancer and prevent injury and death from insufficient blood supply to organs and tissues.

23 Apr 2005

Using X-ray crystallography, researchers have "seen" the structural basis for antibiotic resistanc

Using X-ray crystallography, researchers at Yale have "seen" the structural basis for antibiotic resistance to common pathogenic bacteria, facilitating design of a new class of antibiotic drugs, according to an article in Cell.

22 Apr 2005

Propensity for obesity, diabetes may occur in utero

The adage "You are what you eat" should be rephrased to include "and so are your children," based on metabolic research pioneered by researchers at the University at Buffalo.

22 Apr 2005

Enzyme that helps trigger the development of leukemia

Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have identified an enzyme that helps trigger the development of leukemia, a cancer of blood cells.

21 Apr 2005

First time video capture of chemical signals that traverse human cells messaging

Researchers at UCSD and UC Irvine have captured on video for the first time chemical signals that traverse human cells in response to tiny mechanical jabs, like waves spreading from pebbles tossed into a pond. The scientists released the videos and technical details that explain how the visualization effect was created as part of a paper published in the April 21 issue of Nature.

21 Apr 2005

Have a laugh a day, it will do you good !

It used to be an apple a day which kept the doctor away now scientists at University College London have found that being happy might be equally beneficial.

19 Apr 2005

Short segments of sugar chains useful in search for new drugs for Alzheimer's

Heparansulfate, which is needed for normal fetal development among other things, is also important for the build-up of amyloid, morbid protein deposits that appear in several serious diseases. This is shown by Uppsala scientists in an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.