Patients that receive kidney transplants have an increased risk of an invasive form of skin cancer. It is unclear if donor tissue contributes to cancer formation. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Philippe Ratajczak and colleagues at INSERM demonstrate that donor tissue can lead to caner formation in transplant recipients. They examined tumor cells and transplant tissues from a small sample of kidney transplant patients that had subsequently developed skin squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). In one patient they identified the presence of skin tumor cells ...

Many cancer therapies function by activating proteins like Caspase-3 (CASP3) that promote cell death. Several forms of cancer develop resistance to these drugs by down regulating CASP3 through an unknown mechanism. In the absence of CASP3, tumor cells produce another cell death promoting protein CASP7, but it is rendered inactive by the X-linked inhibitor of apoptosis protein (XIAP). In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Po-Huang Liang and colleagues at Academia Sinica identify a compound (I-Lys) that disrupts the interaction between CASP7 and XIAP. Release ...

HIV-1 protease inhibitors are very effective antiviral drugs. These drugs target HIV-1 proteases, which are required for viral replication. Despite the success of protease inhibitors for suppressing HIV-1, some patients do not respond to protease inhibitor therapy. For most patients, the lack of response is not due to mutation of the HIV-1 protease. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Robert Silcano and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University identify the effects of protease inhibitors on different stages of viral replication. The authors found that protease ...

A severe hereditary bleeding disorder was described in a large family from east Texas in 2001. The affected family members routinely had bruising, nosebleeds, massive blood loss following injury or surgery, and often required blood transfusions. Routine tests for functional components of the blood coagulation pathway did not reveal any obvious defects. Genomic sequencing revealed a mutation in the gene encoding coagulation factor 5 (FV), but it was not considered to contribute to disease, since clotting assays were normal. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, ...

CINCINNATI – New research in the Journal of Clinical Investigation provides evidence that gene-environment interactions are a major contributor to preterm birth and that using a combinatory treatment strategy can prevent preterm delivery in a mouse model. In findings posted online Aug. 27, scientists from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center say their study provides important new insights into a major global health problem – one that remains stubbornly persistent in the United States. Preterm birth causes more than 1 million deaths a year and can leave premature ...

CINCINNATI – New research in the Journal of Clinical Investigation suggests that blocking a protein normally credited with suppressing leukemia may be a promising therapeutic strategy for an aggressive form of the disease called acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Researchers from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center report their results in a study posted online Aug. 27 by the journal. The protein scientists targeted is a transcription factor known as RUNX1, which also plays an important role in helping regulate the normal development of blood cells. The researchers ...

CINCINNATI – Researchers identify an underlying molecular process that causes a genetic form of non-syndromic deafness in a new study that also suggests affected families may be at risk of damage to other organs. A multi-national research team led by scientists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center report their findings in a study posted online Aug. 27 by the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The research opens the door to finding possible treatments for the condition (called DFNB49 non-syndromic hearing loss) and points to possible cellular damage in other ...

Amsterdam, The Netherlands – Tuesday 27 August 2013: Personalised management is the only way to close the mortality gap for patients with atrial fibrillation (AF), according to an ESC consensus paper presented at ESC Congress 2013 by Professor Paulus Kirchhof (UK). The Atrial Fibrillation competence NETwork (AFNET) and European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) consensus paper is published online in the European Journal of Pacing, Arrhythmias, and Cardiac Electrophysiology (EP-Europace)1 and presented during the ESC Congress session on personalised cardiology. Professor ...

August 27, 2013, Shenzhen, China - A consortium of researchers from The University of Queensland, the Queensland Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF Qld) and BGI has discovered that sorghum, a drought-tolerant African crop, holds vastly more genetic variation than previously reported. This study published in Nature Communications today provides an invaluable resource for the genetic improvement of sorghum and other grass species. Sorghum is not only a food and feed cereal crop, but also can be used as the basis of biofuel. Its resistance to heat and ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (August 27, 2013) – By creating a powerful new gene regulation system called CRISPR-on, Whitehead Institute researchers now have the ability to increase the expression of multiple genes simultaneously and precisely manipulate each gene's expression level. The system is effective in both mouse and human cells as well as in mouse embryos. "CRISPR-on is a tool that will be very useful for studying many biological processes, particularly for studying gene functions and gene networks," says Whitehead Founding Member Rudolf Jaenisch. "In contrast to RNA interference, ...

European hunter-gatherers acquired domesticated pigs from nearby farmers as early as 4600BC, according to new evidence. The international team of scientists, including researchers at Durham and Aberdeen universities, showed there was interaction between the hunter-gatherer and farming communities and a 'sharing' of animals and knowledge. The interaction between the two groups eventually led to the hunter-gatherers incorporating farming and breeding of livestock into their culture, say the scientists. The research, published in Nature Communications today (27 August), ...

'Where' and 'how' memories are encoded in a nervous system is one of the most challenging questions in biological research. The formation and recall of associative memories is essential for an independent life. The hippocampus has long been considered a centre in the brain for the long-term storage of spatial associations. Now, Mazahir T. Hasan at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research and José Maria Delgado-Garcìa at the University Pablo de Olavide of Seville, Spain, were able to provide first experimental evidence that a specific form of memory associations is ...

Earthquake damage to buildings is mainly due to the existing shear waves which transfer their energy during an earthquake to the houses. These shear waves are significantly influenced by the underground and the topography of the surrounding area. Detailed knowledge of the landform and the near-surface underground structure is, therefore, an important prerequisite for a local seismic hazard assessment and for the evaluation of the ground-effect, which can strongly modify and increase local ground motion. As described in the latest issue of Geophysical Journal International, ...

A majority of stroke patients have problems paying attention and could be helped by brain-training computer games, a new study suggests. Researchers at Imperial College London found that problems such as difficulty filtering out distractions, difficulty following instructions, and reduced alertness are much more common in stroke patients than doctors realise. Their study, published in Neurology, showed that brain scans and bedside tests can be used to diagnose these three types of attention problems, each of which could be addressed with computer games tailored for the ...

An international team of researchers, led by physicists from Lund University, have confirmed the existence of what is considered a new element with atomic number 115. The experiment was conducted at the GSI research facility in Germany. The results confirm earlier measurements performed by research groups in Russia. "This was a very successful experiment and is one of the most important in the field in recent years", said Dirk Rudolph, Professor at the Division of Atomic Physics at Lund University. Besides the observations of the new chemical element, the researchers ...

Computer models are used to inform policy decisions about energy, but existing models are generally "black boxes" that don't show how they work, making it impossible for anyone to replicate their findings. Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new open-source model and are sharing the data they put into it, to allow anyone to check their work – an important advance given the environmental and economic impact of energy policy decisions. "Most models show you the math behind how they work, but don't share the source code that is supposed to implement ...

This news release is available in Spanish. Gelidium corneum is a very common alga along the Basque coast. It grows at a depth of between 3 and 15 metres, and from September onwards can be seen out of the water. It gets broken up by storms and washed up on the beaches where it forms a red carpet. On some parts of the coast, above all in transparent water zones, the fronds of the algae have turned yellowish. The researchers have identified this change as a symptom of stress. There are more sunny days during the summer which is when the algae are exposed to increased ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Dating violence in adolescence not only takes a physical and emotional toll on young women, it also leads to less education and lower earnings later in life, according to a first-of-its-kind study led by a Michigan State University researcher. A young woman's educational performance may be hindered by her partner's actions, such as destroying books or homework or causing injuries that prevent her from going to school. The findings, reported in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, reinforce the need for programs and efforts to support victims' ...

New Rochelle, NY, August 26, 2013—New classes of therapeutic antisense oligonucleotides can have toxic effects on the liver. A novel machine learning-based approach used to predict the hepatotoxic potential of an antisense drug based on its chemical sequence is presented in Nucleic Acid Therapeutics, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. publishers. The article is available on the Nucleic Acid Therapeutics website. Peter Hagedorn and coauthors from Santaris Pharma, Hørsholm, Denmark, and University of Copenhagen, Denmark, describe the use of machine learning ...

Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) is a cancer of the white blood cells that is most commonly found in adults and in the elderly. Its incidence has been estimated to be 1 to 2 in 100,000 people. CML was the first cancer to be associated with a genetic abnormality, known as the Philadelphia Chromosome, which 95% of all CML patients carry in their cells. The Philadelphia Chromosome is formed by exchanges of material belonging to two distinct chromosomes, number 9 and number 22. To form the Philadelphia Chromosome, these two chromosomes break at very specific places, disrupting ...

KNOXVILLE—Two Tennessee high school students have now done what many scientists strive for: publishing their research in a top science journal. Dalton Chaffee and Hayes Griffin worked with mentor R. Tucker Gilman, a former postdoctoral research fellow at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, to study mate choice. Their work was published this week in the journal Evolution. The students began their research between their junior and senior years at Bearden High School in Knoxville. They wanted ...

Like volunteers handing out cups of energy drinks to marathon runners, specially engineered "helper cells" transplanted along with stem cells can dole out growth factors to increase the stem cells' endurance, at least briefly, Johns Hopkins researchers report. Their study, published in the September issue of Experimental Neurology, is believed to be the first to test the helper-cell tactic, which they hope will someday help to overcome a major barrier to successful stem cell transplants. "One of the bottlenecks with stem cell therapy is the survival of cells once they're ...

A strategy that combines two effective colorectal cancer screening methods, fecal immunological test and colonoscopy, may improve prevention and detection of colorectal cancer and reduce costs, according to a new study in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology (CGH), the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. The study used a simulation model to test a hybrid screening strategy consisting of annual or biennial fecal immunological test at younger ages (50 to 65 years of age), combined with a single colonoscopy when the patient ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- All living things must obey the laws of physics — including the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the universe's disorder, or entropy, can only grow. Highly ordered cells and organisms appear to contradict this principle, but they actually do conform because they generate heat that increases the universe's overall entropy. Still, questions remain: What is the theoretical threshold for how much heat a living cell must generate to fulfill its thermodynamic constraints? And how closely do cells approach that limit? In a recent paper in the ...

PITTSBURGH, Aug, 27, 2013 – Even with access to health care, African-American women are less likely to receive the vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV), which reduces the risk for cervical cancer, according to a study by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The findings, published today in the Journal of Adolescent Health, suggest a need for health care providers to both bolster HPV vaccination recommendations and address negative attitudes toward the vaccine among this vulnerable patient population. HPV is a sexually transmitted infection ...