Laboratory News and Research

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Differences in sleep patterns

Researchers have long observed significant differences in normal people's sleep. Some are light sleepers, whereas others sleep deeply.

20 Jun 2007

Like Johnny Appleseed of yore, the Food and Drug Administration is scattering food-defense programs across the US so that the country's million or so food processors can better secure their food against possible contamination by terrorists.

20 Jun 2007

Foie gras can speed amyloid development

University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine professor and researcher Alan Solomon, M.D., director of the Human Immunology and Cancer/Alzheimer's Disease and Amyloid-Related Disorders Research Program, led a team that discovered a link between foie gras prepared from goose or duck liver and the type of amyloid found in rheumatoid arthritis or tuberculosis.

19 Jun 2007

True nature of heterochromatin revealed

Not so long ago, the difficult-to-sequence, highly repetitive, gene-poor DNA found in regions of chromosomes known as heterochromatin was called "junk." Like dark matter in the universe, the true nature of heterochromatin was unknown.

19 Jun 2007

Do common treatments for ADHD increase risk of drug abuse?

Parents, doctors, and others have wondered whether common treatments for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) inadvertently predispose adolescents to future drug abuse.

19 Jun 2007

Alzheimer's-associated enzyme beta-secretase can disrupt neural activity in the brain

An enzyme involved in the formation of the amyloid-beta protein associated with Alzheimer's disease can also alter the mechanism by which signals are transmitted between brain cells, the disruption of which can cause seizures.

19 Jun 2007

Summertime is tick time and Lyme disease is on the rise

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States says cases of the tick borne illness Lyme disease are on the rise across the country.

18 Jun 2007

Wurst protein plays a decisive role in breathing

A newly discovered transmembrane protein called "Wurst" (sausage) appears to play a decisive role in breathing ? possibly in all animals, from flies to human beings.

18 Jun 2007

Researchers clarify alphaB-crystallin's role in multiple sclerosis

A protein found primarily in the lens of the eye could be the critical "tipping point" in the spiral of inflammation and damage that occurs in multiple sclerosis, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine report.

18 Jun 2007

Better understanding of how the body fights off mucosal pathogens

In a finding that could have important implications for HIV vaccine research, new research at Weill Cornell Medical College illuminates the ways in which the body prevents its mucosal surfaces from being overwhelmed by bacteria.

17 Jun 2007

Researchers identify potential role for retinoic acid in autoimmune and inflammatory diseases

An important finding, which could eventually lead to a new therapeutic approach for treating autoimmune and inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, colitis, psoriasis and others, was announced by researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology (LIAI).

17 Jun 2007

Herpes virus hijacks DNA repair process

Scientists probing the details of viral infection have discovered an intriguing surprise: in mice, herpes viruses hijack their host cells' tools for fixing DNA damage and use those tools to enhance their own reproduction.

17 Jun 2007

Contact lens solution linked to Acanthamoeba keratitis

The use of a particular contact lens solution has a strong association with Acanthamoeba keratitis, a rare severe eye infection, report researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago in a study published online this week by the American Journal of Ophthalmology.

17 Jun 2007

Researchers culture blood-forming stem cells from human fat tissue

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have successfully isolated and cultured human hematopoietic stem cells from fat, or adipose, tissue, suggesting that they have found another important source of cells for reconstituting the bone marrow of patients undergoing intensive radiation therapy for blood cancers.

17 Jun 2007

New computational method uses biological networks to better identify relationships between molecules

Scientists at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital (Canada), European Molecular Biology Laboratory (Germany), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) have created a new computational method called NetworKIN.

17 Jun 2007

RAS signaling of circadian output

In the June 15th issue of G&D, Drs. Jay Dunlap and Jennifer Loros, with colleagues at Dartmouth Medical School, have finally cloned the band gene, and have found that it is an allele of ras-1.

17 Jun 2007

Changing face of dialysis care in the United States

As medical, economic, and policy trends converge to alter the way dialysis care is organized and financed, protecting the unique relationship between dialysis patients and the kidney specialists who direct their care is a top priority, according to a special feature in the July Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

17 Jun 2007

Stress and Alzheimer's disease

Subjecting mice to repeated emotional stress, the kind we experience in everyday life, may contribute to the accumulation of neurofibrillary tangles, one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease, report researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

17 Jun 2007

Researchers shed light on shrinking of chromosomes

A human cell contains an enormous 1.8 metres of DNA partitioned into 46 chromosomes.

15 Jun 2007

Newly found antibodies may be body's natural defense against Alzheimer's

In an important advance in the battle against Alzheimer's disease, physician-scientists at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center have identified naturally occurring antibodies in human blood that may help to defend against this form of dementia as well as other neurodegenerative diseases.

14 Jun 2007