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Molecular-level insights into how physical activity influences the heart

Everyone knows that exercise comes with metabolic and cardiovascular benefits, but scientists understand surprisingly little about how physical activity influences the heart itself. Now, a new study in the December 23rd issue of Cell, a Cell Press publication, offers some of the first molecular-level insights.

24 Dec 2010

Sequestering GSK3 enzyme leads to stabilization of proteins in cells

The cell signaling pathway known as Wnt, commonly activated in cancers, causes internal membranes within a healthy cell to imprison an enzyme that is vital in degrading proteins, preventing the enzyme from doing its job and affecting the stability of many proteins within the cell, researchers at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have found.

24 Dec 2010

Paternal diet affects lipid metabolizing genes in offspring

Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the University of Texas at Austin have uncovered evidence that environmental influences experienced by a father can be passed down to the next generation, "reprogramming" how genes function in offspring. A new study published this week in Cell shows that environmental cues-in this case, diet-influence genes in mammals from one generation to the next, evidence that until now has been sparse.

24 Dec 2010

Catalogs of fruit fly and roundworm's functional genomic elements

Scientists today published catalogs of the fruit fly and roundworm's functional genomic elements: DNA sequences in the genome that carry the instructions and determine which genes are turned on and off at various times in different cells.

23 Dec 2010

TMEM106B gene appears to protect against frontotemporal lobar degeneration

Neuroscientists had assumed that a mutation in the progranulin gene, which makes the progranulin protein and supports brain neurons, was sufficient to produce a kind of dementia known as frontotemporal lobar degeneration. But now an international team of scientists led by researchers at Mayo Clinic's campus in Florida have found another genetic factor they say appears to protect against the disorder in progranulin mutation carriers.

23 Dec 2010

Top ten advances in cardiovascular, stroke research in 2010

Research on reducing risks, improving medical treatment and improving lifestyle behaviors to fight the battle against heart disease and stroke are among the key scientific findings that make up this year's top cardiovascular and stroke research recognized by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.

22 Dec 2010

New online tool helps scientists to find gene promoters

Researchers at The Wistar Institute announce the release of an online tool that will help scientists find "gene promoters"—regions along a DNA strand that tell a cell's transcription machinery where to start reading in order to create a particular protein.

22 Dec 2010

UH scientist evaluates microRNAs as potential treatment strategy for ovarian cancer

The day when an ovarian cancer patient can treat her tumor with a single, painless pill instead of a toxic drug cocktail is the ultimate goal of the pioneering research of a University of Houston scientist.

22 Dec 2010

Chronic fatigue syndrome not linked to virus

The latest research from the University College London, the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, and University of Oxford, England suggests that chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is not caused by the virus XMRV (xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus). The team says that earlier research that linked the virus to CFS was faulty because of contamination of mouse cell DNA samples in the laboratory.

21 Dec 2010

Whites with mutations more likely to be susceptible to cocaine abuse

Nearly one in five whites could carry a genetic variant that substantially increases their odds of being susceptible to severe cocaine abuse, according to new research.

21 Dec 2010

Study provides evidence on prevalence of two separate mosquito species which carry malaria parasite

In notable back-to-back papers appearing in the prestigioous journal Science in October, teams of researchers, one led by Nora Besansky, a professor of biological sciences and a member of the Eck Institute for Global Health at the University of Notre Dame, provided evidence that Anopheles gambiae, which is one of the major mosquito carriers of the malaria parasite in Sub-Saharan Africa, is evolving into two separate species with different traits.

21 Dec 2010

Exiqon completes discovery phase program for early detection of colorectal cancer in blood

Exiqon A/S today announced the completion of the discovery phase in its program for early detection of colorectal cancer in blood.

21 Dec 2010

DNA sequence variations linked with heart's electrical rhythm in several surprising regions

A study among almost 50,000 people worldwide has identified DNA sequence variations linked with the heart's electrical rhythm in several surprising regions among 22 locations across the human genome. The variants were found by an international consortium, including Johns Hopkins researchers, and reported Nov. 14 in the Nature Genetics advance online publication.

21 Dec 2010

ExonHit awarded QTDP grants for AclarusDx and EHT 107 programs

ExonHit Therapeutics today announced that the Company was awarded two grants to support two of its Research & Development projects under the Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project Program: AclarusDx™ in Alzheimer's disease and the EHT 107 program in oncology.

21 Dec 2010

Deinove to receive European patent for genetic engineering process

Deinove, the world's leading specialist in Deinococcus bacteria for biofuels, green chemistry and antibiotics, today announced that the European Patent Office had notified it of the intention to grant the patent application EP2016183 entitled "Process for chromosome engineering using a novel DNA repair system".

21 Dec 2010

Exome sequencing leads to correct diagnosis and life-saving treatment for mysterious genetic disorder

A genetic testing approach called exome sequencing—which provides a clinically practical alternative to whole-genome sequencing—led to correct diagnosis and life-saving treatment in a child with a previously unknown genetic disease, reports an upcoming paper in Genetics in Medicine, the official peer-reviewed journal of The American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG). The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

21 Dec 2010

DNA tunneling detector embedded in a ‘Nanopore’

Scientists from Imperial College London are developing technology that could ultimately sequence a person's genome in mere minutes, at a fraction of the cost of current commercial techniques.

20 Dec 2010

23andMe project aims at validating highly scalable pharmacogenomics research

23andMe has launched a project funded by the National Institutes of Health which is aimed at validating 23andMe's highly-scalable platform for pharmacogenomics research. The company received $190,000 in stimulus funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for "Web-based Phenotyping for Genome-Wide Association Studies of Drug Response" from NIH's National Human Genome Research Institute.

17 Dec 2010

Prions responsible for BSE can survive in new host environment

Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have shown that prions, bits of infectious protein that can cause fatal neurodegenerative disease such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy or "mad cow disease," have the ability to adapt to survive in a new host environment.

17 Dec 2010

Researchers discover new molecular mechanism of Alzheimer's disease through protein interaction

Through a complex analysis of protein interactions, researchers from IRB Barcelona and the Joint Programme IRB-BSC have discovered new molecular mechanisms that may be involved in the development of Alzheimer's disease.

17 Dec 2010