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Specialized natural killer cells in human tonsils help protect against Epstein Barr virus

Tonsils are a source of sore throats and an excuse for ice cream. But they also provide an important protective service, their immune-cell-rich tissue acting as the body's first defense against the germs about to be swallowed or inhaled.

12 Mar 2008

Short-term stress impairs brain-cell communication

Short-term stress lasting as little as a few hours can impair brain-cell communication in areas associated with learning and memory, University of California, Irvine researchers have found.

12 Mar 2008

New discovery could change future diagnosis and therapy of depression

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have discovered that a change in the location of a protein in the brain could serve as a biomarker for depression, allowing a simple, rapid, laboratory test to identify patients with depression and to determine whether a particular antidepressant therapy will provide a successful response.

12 Mar 2008

Red-light cameras significantly increase crashes

Rather than improving motorist safety, red-light cameras significantly increase crashes and are a ticket to higher auto insurance premiums, researchers at the University of South Florida College of Public Health conclude.

12 Mar 2008

Post brain injury: New nerve cells originate from neural stem cells

Most cells in the human brain are not nerve cells, but supporting cells (glial cells).

12 Mar 2008

Turning off rogue macrophages

University of Pennsylvania scientists studying macrophages, the biological cells that spring from white blood cells to eat and destroy foreign or dying cells, have discovered how these "policemen" differentiate between friend and foe.

12 Mar 2008

A road map to safer pain control, cost savings during colonoscopies

At a time when several U.S. health insurers have discontinued payment for use of the sedative propofol during most screening colonoscopies, physicians at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered that an alternative way to administer the drug could both save millions of health care dollars and provide a safer way to deliver optimal pain relief.

12 Mar 2008

Switch for programmed cell death promotes spread of glioblastoma

Malignant tumors have usually lost their ability to destroy themselves by programmed cell death, or apoptosis.

12 Mar 2008

Blood test for Parkinson's shows promise

A test that profiles molecular biomarkers in blood could become the first accurate diagnostic test for Parkinson's disease, new research shows.

12 Mar 2008

Scientists discover epigenetic changes in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

Scientists have discovered epigenetic changes (i.e. chemical changes to a gene that do not alter the DNA sequence) in individuals with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

12 Mar 2008

COX-2 expression is marker for cancer development in some benign breast biopsies

It's a good news, bad news situation. Some women who have a breast biopsy are told that while they don't have cancer, they do have atypical hyperplasia -- cells that aren't quite normal and might become cancerous someday.

12 Mar 2008

Scientists identify key protein in cell's 'self-eating' function

Molecular biologists at the University of California, San Diego have found one piece of the complex puzzle of autophagy, the process of "self-eating" performed by all eukaryotic cells - cells with a nucleus - to keep themselves healthy.

12 Mar 2008

Simple blood test could show whether an antidepressant is working

Researchers in the United States have discovered that a single protein in the brain changes its location within a cell membrane when an antidepressant is working.

11 Mar 2008

Weight-loss more effective than intensive insulin therapy for type 2 diabetics, according to expert

Weight-loss and major lifestyle changes may be more effective than intensive insulin therapy for overweight patients with poorly controlled, insulin-resistant type 2 diabetes, according to a diabetes researcher at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

11 Mar 2008

Structure reveals how cells 'sugar-coat' proteins - process essential to many proteins' functions can lead to disease when gone awry

Biologists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, Stony Brook University, and the University of Wurzburg, Germany, have deciphered the structure of a large protein complex responsible for adding sugar molecules to newly formed proteins - a process essential to many proteins' functions.

11 Mar 2008