Toxins News and Research

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Health hazards of global warming

Global warming could do more to hurt your health than simply threaten summertime heat stroke, says a public health physician.

23 Oct 2006

Ecology of microbial invasions

Infectious disease can play a key role in mediating the outcome of competition between rival groups, as seen in the effects of disease-bearing conquistadors in the New World - or, on a much smaller ecological scale, the ability of bacteria to spread their viruses to competing bacteria.

23 Oct 2006

Too much TV for tots could lead to autism?

A new study has come up with the rather bizarre theory that watching too much television at an early age may trigger autism.

23 Oct 2006

Scientists discover how brain turns on system designed to protect nerve cells from toxic "free radicals"

Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute report they have found how the brain turns on a system designed to protect its nerve cells from toxic "free radicals," a waste product of cell metabolism that has been implicated in some degenerative brain diseases, heart attacks, strokes, cancer, and aging.

20 Oct 2006

Flexible interface between DNA ligase and a heterotrimeric sliding clamp supports conformational switching and efficient ligation of DNA

Scientists investigating an important DNA-repair enzyme now have a better picture of the final steps of a process that glues together, or ligates, the ends of DNA strands to restore the double helix.

20 Oct 2006

New Purdue biochip may speed drug development

Purdue University researchers have developed a biochip that measures the electrical activities of cells and is capable of obtaining 60 times more data in just one reading than is possible with current technology.

20 Oct 2006

$74 million allocated to study environmental causes of disease

As part of the new Exposure Biology Program, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a component of the National Institutes of Health, today announced $74 million in grant opportunities for the development of new technologies that will improve the measurement of environmental exposures that contribute to human disease.

19 Oct 2006

More 'eco-friendly' hospitals being built

Hospitals are beginning to build "more efficient, eco-friendly facilities with 'sustainable' design features" as the industry "embarks on a $200 billion construction program over the next decade to replace or rebuild decaying facilities and meet growing demand from aging baby boomers," the Wall Street Journal reports.

5 Oct 2006

New understanding of how cells defend themselves

Biologists at the EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne) have unveiled a new twist in a metabolic pathway that cells use to defend themselves against toxins made by disease-causing bacteria.

21 Sep 2006

New Yorkers lied to in aftermath of 9/11

A new study released this week says thousands of World Trade Center responders have developed chronic and disabling illnesses that are likely to be permanent.

12 Sep 2006

Emergent BioSolutions awarded $3.8 million to develop anthrax immune globulin therapeutic

Emergent BioSolutions has announced that it has been awarded two grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) totaling $3.8 million to support the development of the company's anthrax immune globulin (AIG) therapeutic product.

1 Sep 2006

Genotoxic bacteria in the digestive tract

Escherichia coli is a commensal bacterium, which lives peacefully in our digestive tract. However, certain strains are pathogenic and are frequently incriminated in a broad spectrum of infections, affecting both farmed animals and humans (diarrhoea, urinary tract infections, food poisoning, septicaemia, neonatal meningitis, etc.).

16 Aug 2006