PITTSBURGH, March 26, 2014 – A breast cancer therapy that blocks estrogen synthesis to activate cancer-killing genes sometimes loses its effectiveness because the cancer takes over epigenetic mechanisms, including permanent DNA modifications in the patient's tumor, once again allowing tumor growth, according to an international team headed by the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI). The finding warrants research into adding drugs that could prevent the cancer from hijacking patients' repressive gene regulatory machinery, which might allow the original therapy ...

Boston, MA — A large international consortium of researchers has produced the first comprehensive, detailed map of the way genes work across the major cells and tissues of the human body. The findings describe the complex networks that govern gene activity, and the new information could play a crucial role in identifying the genes involved with disease. "Now, for the first time, we are able to pinpoint the regions of the genome that can be active in a disease and in normal activity, whether it's in a brain cell, the skin, in blood stem cells or in hair follicles," said ...

Working with genetically engineered mice, Johns Hopkins neuroscientists report they have identified what they believe is the cause of the vast disintegration of a part of the brain called the corpus striatum in rodents and people with Huntington's disease: loss of the ability to make the amino acid cysteine. They also found that disease progression slowed in mice that were fed a diet rich in cysteine, which is found in foods such as wheat germ and whey protein. Their results suggest further investigation into cysteine supplementation as a candidate therapeutic in people ...

Until now, rings of material in a disc have only been observed around giant planets like Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and especially Saturn, which is known for its spectacular rings. Now astronomers from the Niels Bohr Institute, among others, have observed the first miniature planet with two rings of ice and pebbles. It is a smaller celestial body, called Chariklo, located two billion kilometers out in the solar system between Saturn and Uranus. The results are published in the prestigious scientific journal, Nature. Chariklo was located in the Kuiper Belt, a collection ...

Scientists have built the clearest picture yet of how our genetic material is regulated in order to make the human body work. They have mapped how a network of switches, built into our DNA, controls where and when our genes are turned on and off. University of Edinburgh scientists played a leading role in the international project – called FANTOM5 – which has been examining how our genome holds the code for creating the fantastic diversity of cell types that make up a human. The three year project, steered by the RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies in Japan, ...

VIDEO: This is an interview with Professor Artur Ekert, co-inventor of quantum cryptography, about what it takes to keep secrets secret. Click here for more information. Revelations of the extent of government surveillance have thrown a spotlight on the security – or lack thereof – of our digital communications. Even today's encrypted data is vulnerable to technological progress. What privacy is ultimately possible? In the 27 March issue of Nature, the weekly international ...

Long-term brain damage caused by stroke could be reduced by saving cells called pericytes that control blood flow in capillaries, reports a new study led by scientists from UCL (University College London). Until now, many scientists believed that blood flow within the brain was solely controlled by changes in the diameter of arterioles, blood vessels that branch out from arteries into smaller capillaries. The latest research reveals that the brain's blood supply is in fact chiefly controlled by the narrowing or widening of capillaries as pericytes tighten or loosen around ...

That question is likely to stir debate in coming years in many of the more-than-60 countries that provide newborn screening, as whole-genome sequencing (WGS) becomes increasingly affordable and reliable. Newborn screening programs – which involve drawing a few drops of blood from a newborn's heel – have been in place since the late 1960s, and are credited with having saved thousands of lives by identifying certain genetic, endocrine or metabolic disorders that can be treated effectively when caught early enough. Advocates of routine WGS for newborns argue that the new technology ...

Washington, D.C.—The Solar System has a new most-distant member, bringing its outer frontier into focus. New work from Carnegie's Scott Sheppard and Chadwick Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory reports the discovery of a distant dwarf planet, called 2012 VP113, which was found beyond the known edge of the Solar System. This is likely one of thousands of distant objects that are thought to form the so-called inner Oort cloud. What's more, their work indicates the potential presence of an enormous planet, perhaps up to 10 times the size of Earth, not yet seen, but possibly ...

Patients with leukocyte adhesion deficiency, or LAD, suffer from frequent bacterial infections, including the severe gum disease known as periodontitis. These patients often lose their teeth early in life. New research by University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine researchers, teaming with investigators from the National Institutes of Health, has demonstrated a method of reversing this bone loss and inflammation. The work was led by Penn Dental Medicine's George Hajishengallis, professor in the Department of Microbiology, in collaboration with Niki Moutsopoulos ...

(WASHINGTON, March 26, 2014) – Research published online today in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology, presents an unprecedented look at five unique blood cells in the human body, pinpointing the location of key genetic regulators in these cells and providing a new tool that may help scientists to identify how blood cells form and shed light on the etiology of blood diseases. Work published today in Blood* is a subset of a much larger catalog of genetic information about nearly 1,000 human cells and tissues unveiled today from the international research ...

In a series of studies involving 140 American men and women with liver tumors, researchers at Johns Hopkins have used specialized 3-D MRI scans to precisely measure living and dying tumor tissue to quickly show whether highly toxic chemotherapy – delivered directly through a tumor's blood supply – is working. The investigators say their findings, to be presented March 22-27 in San Diego at the annual meeting of the Society of Interventional Radiology, are the first "proof of principle" that this technology can show tumors in three dimensions and accurately measure tumor ...

Resistance is not futile when it comes to a new method to more efficiently convert biomass to biofuels. New research by scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in conjunction with the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) suggests that a type of bacterial resistance may provide more efficient production of biofuels. The team identified the genetic origin of bacterial resistance to an ionic liquid (a salt in the liquid state), which they successfully introduced into a strain of E. coli bacteria for the production of advanced biofuels. The ionic liquid resistance ...

Significant progress toward creating "homo minutus" - a benchtop human -was reported at the Society of Toxicology meeting on Mar. 26 in Phoenix. The advance - successful development and analysis of a liver human organ construct that responds to exposure to a toxic chemical much like a real liver- was described in a presentation by John Wikswo, the Gordon A. Cain University Professor and Director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education (VIIBRE) at Vanderbilt University. The achievement is the first result from a five-year, $19 million ...

DALLAS – March 26, 2014 – Just as archeologists try to decipher ancient tablets to discern their meaning, UT Southwestern Medical Center cancer biologists are working to decode the purpose of an ancient gene considered one of the most important in cancer research. The p53 gene appears to be involved in signaling other cells instrumental in stopping tumor development. But the p53 gene predates cancer, so scientists are uncertain what its original function is. In trying to unravel the mystery, Dr. John Abrams, Professor of Cell Biology at UT Southwestern, and his team ...

Northeastern University professor of pharmaceutical sciences, Tania Konry, has developed a single instrument that can conduct a wide range of biological scans in a fraction of the time and cost of industry standard equipment. That's because it uses considerably less material and ultra-sensitive detection methods to do the same thing. Currently, researchers face enormous time constraints and financial hurdles from having to run these analyses on a regular basis. Hundreds of dollars and 24 hours are what's required to scan biological materials for important biomarkers that ...

Support in developed countries for natural history—the study of the fundamental nature of organisms and how and where they live and interact with their environment—appears to be in steep decline. Yet natural history provides essential knowledge for fields as varied as human health, food security, conservation, land management, and recreation. In the April issue of BioScience, a group of scientists from institutions across North America details examples supporting their conviction that a revitalization of the practice of natural history will provide important benefits for ...

Decreased exposure to air pollution in utero is linked with improved childhood developmental scores and higher levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a key protein for brain development, according to a study looking at the closure of a coal-burning power plant in China led by researchers at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health at the Mailman School of Public Health. The study is the first to assess BDNF and cognitive development with respect to prenatal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), a component of air pollution commonly ...

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), a multi-institutional partnership led by Berkeley Lab, have identified the genetic origins of a microbial resistance to ionic liquids and successfully introduced this resistance into a strain of E. coli bacteria for the production of advanced biofuels. The ionic liquid resistance is based on a pair of genes discovered in a bacterium native to a tropical rainforest in Puerto Rico. "We identified two genes in Enterobacter lignolyticus, a soil bacterium that is tolerant to imidazolium-based ...

VIDEO: On March 23 when the TRMM satellite passed over Gillian, it was at hurricane-force. TRMM revealed intense storms in a well-defined eye wall producing rain at a rate of over... Click here for more information. Tropical Cyclone Gillian was near peak intensity when the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite passed overhead and saw towering thunderstorms and very heavy rainfall in the storm on March 23. By March 26, Gillian had weakened to a tropical storm and ...

HOUSTON – (March 26, 2014) –It is probably not a good idea to shop for leisure travel from the office during business hours, according to a new study from Rice University and Iowa State University. Using data from a major online hotel reservation site, the study examined the quality of the hotel that consumers chose for their vacations and subsequently how satisfied they were with their stay. They found that consumers who traveled farther and made reservations during business hours were more likely to select higher quality hotels but were less satisfied after their stay. ...

Quintessence and phantom fields, two hypotheses formulated using data from satellites, such as Planck and WMAP, are among the many theories that try to explain the nature of dark energy. Now researchers from Barcelona and Athens suggest that both possibilities are only a mirage in the observations and it is the quantum vacuum which could be behind this energy that moves our universe. Cosmologists believe that some three quarters of the universe are made up of a mysterious dark energy which would explain its accelerated expansion. The truth is that they do not know what ...

March 26, 2014 – (BRONX, NY) – From uncovering the role nerve cells play in metastasis to identifying new cancer-causing genes, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University made notable advances in the understanding and potential treatment of cancer during the past year. Several Einstein faculty members and students will present their recent research at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting, taking place in San Diego April 5-9, 2014. Among the presentations are those during major and mini symposia: Gene Regulation ...

Rochester, Minn. — Gout is on the rise among U.S. men and women, and this piercingly painful and most common form of inflammatory arthritis is turning out to be more complicated than had been thought. The standard way to check for gout is by drawing fluid or tissue from an affected joint and looking for uric acid crystals, a test known as a needle aspirate. That usually works, but not always: In a new Mayo Clinic study, X-rays known as dual-energy CT scans found gout in one-third of patients whose aspirates tested negative for the disease. The CT scans allowed rheumatologists ...

Reston, Va. (March 21, 2012) – New quantitative data suggests that 30 percent of the surgeries performed for non-small cell lung cancer patients in a community-wide clinical study were deemed unnecessary. Additionally, positron emission tomography (PET) was found to reduce unnecessary surgeries by 50 percent, according to research published in the March issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine. PET imaging prior to surgery helps stage a patient's disease by providing functional images of tumors throughout the body, especially areas where cancer has spread, otherwise known ...