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Gleevec holds potential as first drug to successfully treat neurofibromatosis

Researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine report that the anti-cancer drug Gleevec holds out promise to become the first effective treatment for neurofibromatosis, a genetic disease that has resisted treatments until now.

30 Oct 2008

Discovery of mechanism and possible drug treatment for growth of nerve tumors in neurofibromatosis

Researchers studying neurofibromatosis type 1 - a rare disease in which tumors grow within nerves - have found that the tumors are triggered by crosstalk between cells in the nerves and cells in the blood.

30 Oct 2008

Cancer requires support from immune system to develop, researchers report

Tumors that grow around nerves in a rare genetic disease need cooperation from cells from the immune system in order to grow, reports a team of scientists, including researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center.

30 Oct 2008

Researchers find new chemical key that could unlock hundreds of new antibiotics

Chemistry researchers at The University of Warwick and the John Innes Centre, have found a novel signalling molecule that could be a key that will open up hundreds of new antibiotics unlocking them from the DNA of the Streptomyces family of bacteria.

29 Oct 2008

New small device able to counts viruses in minutes

Scientists in New Zealand have invented a small device able to count in a matter of minutes how many viruses are in a sample.

29 Oct 2008

Scientists discover a catalytic antibody that degrades a known appetite stimulant

The antibody works against the gastric hormone ghrelin (pronounced "grell-in"), which has been linked to weight gain and fat storage through its metabolic actions. These findings point towards a potentially novel treatment for obesity that would interfere directly with the some of the biological mechanisms determining weight.

28 Oct 2008

Healing process found to backfire in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis patients

A mechanism in the body which typically helps a person heal from an injury, may actually be causing patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) to get worse, researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and their collaborators have found.

27 Oct 2008

Exercise-induced fatigue in muscular dystrophies, study points to potential new therapies

A University of Iowa study suggests that the prolonged fatigue after mild exercise that occurs in people with many forms of muscular dystrophy is distinct from the inherent muscle weakness caused by the disease.

26 Oct 2008

First-ever international guidelines for the treatment of psoriatic arthritis

Rheumatologists, dermatologists, and patient advocates have come together to publish the first-ever international guidelines for the treatment of psoriatic arthritis, a disease that mainly affects people who have psoriasis but also some people without it.

26 Oct 2008

Newly discovered mechanism can explain the Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome

Researchers from Uppsala University have discovered a mechanism that silences several genes in a chromosome domain. The findings, published in today's on-line issue of Molecular Cell, have implications in understanding the human disorder Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome.

26 Oct 2008

New molecules with many branches will help unleash potential of nanotechnology

Materials science and the pharmaceutical industry could soon be revolutionized by emerging nanotechnologies based on designer molecules with long complex tree-and branch structures. Such molecules offer almost limitless scope for design of bespoke compounds for specific applications in disease therapy, for novel materials such as resins, as well as electronic displays, and energy storage. Almost every field involving design and synthesis of chemical compounds will be transformed by the arrival of technologies allowing nanoscale design of these branched molecules, known as hyperbranched polymers.

26 Oct 2008

A new role for a critical DNA repair molecule in the immune system

The human immune system is a brilliantly adaptable weapon against foreign invaders. But it all depends on the work of specialized cells called lymphocytes that have made a risky evolutionary gambit to mutate their own DNA.

26 Oct 2008

Providing pain relief with computers

Pain relief is big business - very big business - which is why Dr Adrian Mulholland in the School of Chemistry has just won an EPSRC Leadership Fellowship grant of nearly £1million, part of which will be used to further his research into designing drugs for pain relief. However, he never goes near a lab, doing it all from his computer.

23 Oct 2008

Grant funds research on environmental link to breast cancer

A foundation that funds research that examines the environmental causes of breast cancer has awarded a grant to a post-doctoral associate at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

23 Oct 2008

Researchers identify novel type of antibody that potently inhibits HIV infection

A small antibody fragment that is highly effective in neutralizing the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) by preventing the virus from entering cells has been identified by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

21 Oct 2008

Molecule stops DNA replication in its tracks

When a dividing cell duplicates its genetic material, a molecular machine called a sliding clamp travels along the DNA double helix, tethering the proteins that perform the replication.

19 Oct 2008

Waste from gut bacteria helps host control weight

A single molecule in the intestinal wall, activated by the waste products from gut bacteria, plays a large role in controlling whether the host animals are lean or fatty, a research team, including scientists from UT Southwestern Medical Center, has found in a mouse study.

19 Oct 2008

Shark antibodies show potential as lifesaver from cancer

Australian scientists have discovered a potentially potent weapon in the fight against cancer in antibodies taken from shark blood.

14 Oct 2008

Design of a compound that stabilizes the main natural suppressor of tumours

An interdisciplinary team of researchers, headed by Ernest Giralt at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and Javier de Mendoza at the "Institut Catala d'Investigaciió Quimica" (ICIQ, Tarragona), have discovered a substance with the capacity to maintain protein p53 stable even when it presents certain mutations that promote the appearance of cancer.

14 Oct 2008

Scientists image transfer of antibodies from mother's milk, to baby's gut

The transportation of antibodies from a mother to her newborn child is vital for the development of that child's nascent immune system. Those antibodies, donated by transfer across the placenta before birth or via breast milk after birth, help shape a baby's response to foreign pathogens and may influence the later occurrence of autoimmune diseases.

13 Oct 2008