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Medicine20 Dec 2012

Gene expression improves the definition of a breast cancer subtype

The study conducted by the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) in conjunction with the GEICAM cooperative group and other American and Canadian researchers has led to a change in the definition of hormone-sensitive breast tumours. Barcelona, 20 December 2012. Gene expression in breast cancer provides valuable biological information for better determining the diagnosis, treatment, risk of relapse and survival rate. However, the most common form of characterizing breast cancer is by histopathological techniques. This study, headed by Dr Aleix Prat, Head of the Translational ...

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Science20 Dec 2012

2 problems in chemical catalysis solved

The research group of Professor Petri Pihko at the Department of Chemistry and the NanoScience Center of the University of Jyväskylä has solved two acute problems in chemical catalysis. The research has been funded by the Academy of Finland. In the first project, the researchers designed a novel intramolecularly assisted catalyst for the synthesis of beta amino acids. Previously published catalysts work only with aromatic side chains in the imines, but the new catalyst designed at Jyväskylä does not have this limitation. The new method might find uses in the synthesis ...

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Medicine20 Dec 2012

Stroke drug kills bacteria that cause ulcers and tuberculosis

Bethesda, MD—A drug currently being used to treat ischemic strokes may prove to be a significant advance in the treatment of tuberculosis and ulcers. In a new research report appearing online in The FASEB Journal, a compound called ebselen effectively inhibits the thioredoxin reductase system in a wide variety of bacteria, including Helicobacter pylori which causes gastric ulcers and Mycobacterium tuberculosis which causes tuberculosis. Thioredoxin and thioredoxin reductase proteins are essential for bacteria to make new DNA, and protect them against oxidative stress caused ...

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Medicine20 Dec 2012

UGA research offers new targets for stroke treatments

Athens, Ga. – New research from the University of Georgia identifies the mechanisms responsible for regenerating blood vessels in the brain. Looking for ways to improve outcomes for stroke patients, researchers led by the UGA College of Pharmacy assistant dean for clinical programs Susan Fagan used candesartan, a commonly prescribed medication for lowering blood pressure, to identify specific growth factors in the brain responsible for recovery after a stroke. The results were published online Dec. 4 in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. Although ...

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Medicine20 Dec 2012

Virtual reality and robotics in neurosurgery -- promise and challenges

Philadelphia, Pa. (December 20, 2012) – Robotic technologies have the potential to help neurosurgeons perform precise, technically demanding operations, together with virtual reality environments to help them navigate through the brain, according to a special supplement to Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. "Virtual Reality (VR) and robotics are two rapidly expanding fields with growing application within neurosurgery," according to an introductory ...

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Physics20 Dec 2012

The paths of photons are random -- but coordinated

Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute have demonstrated that photons (light particles) emitted from light sources embedded in a complex and disordered structure are able to mutually coordinate their paths through the medium. This is a consequence of the photons' wave properties, which give rise to the interaction between different possible routes. The results are published in the scientific journal, Physical Review Letters. The real world is complex and messy. The research field of photonics, which explores and exploits light, is no exception, and in, for example, biological ...

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Science20 Dec 2012

Italian wolves prefer pork to venison

Some European wolves have a distinct preference for wild boar over other prey, according to new research. Scientists from Durham University, UK, in collaboration with the University of Sassari in Italy, found that the diet of wolves was consistently dominated by the consumption of wild boar which accounted for about two thirds of total prey biomass, with roe deer accounting for around a third. The study analysed the remains of prey items in almost 2000 samples of wolf dung over a nine year period and revealed that an increase in roe deer in the wolf diet only occurred ...

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Environment20 Dec 2012

33 new trapdoor spider species discovered in the American southwest

A researcher at the Auburn University Museum of Natural History and Department of Biological Sciences has reported the discovery 33 new trapdoor spider species from the American Southwest. These newly described species all belong to the genus Aptostichus that now contains 40 species, two of which are already famous – Aptostichus stephencolberti and Aptostichus angelinajolieae. The genus now includes other such notable species as Aptostichus barackobamai, named for Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, and reputed fan of Spiderman comics; Aptostichus edwardabbeyi, ...

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Medicine20 Dec 2012

Cellphone data helps pinpoint source of traffic tie-ups

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- In most cities, traffic growth has outpaced road capacity, leading to increased congestion, particularly during the morning and evening commutes. In 2007, congestion on U.S. roads was responsible for 4.2 billion hours of additional travel time, as well as 2.8 billion gallons of fuel consumption and an accompanying increase in air pollution. One way to prevent traffic tie-ups is to have fewer cars on the road by encouraging alternatives such as public transportation, carpooling, flex time and working from home. But a new study — by researchers at MIT, ...

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Science20 Dec 2012

Spanish consumers prefer national fish

What is most important when buying fish: the price, the country of origin, whether it is fresh or frozen or whether it is wild or farm-raised? The average Spanish consumer prefers above all that their fish comes from Spain, according to a study published in the 'Food Quality and Preference' journal. Spain is the largest producer of fish in the European Union but in recent years its population has consumed less fish, especially seafood. A team of scientists brought together nearly 900 consumers from nine Autonomous Communities (Andalusia, Asturias, the Balearic Islands, ...

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Science20 Dec 2012

MIT researchers discover a new kind of magnetism

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Following up on earlier theoretical predictions, MIT researchers have now demonstrated experimentally the existence of a fundamentally new kind of magnetic behavior, adding to the two previously known states of magnetism. Ferromagnetism — the simple magnetism of a bar magnet or compass needle — has been known for centuries. In a second type of magnetism, antiferromagnetism, the magnetic fields of the ions within a metal or alloy cancel each other out. In both cases, the materials become magnetic only when cooled below a certain critical temperature. ...

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Science20 Dec 2012

A nanoscale window to the biological world

If the key to winning battles is knowing both your enemy and yourself, then scientists are now well on their way toward becoming the Sun Tzus of medicine by taking a giant step toward a priceless advantage – the ability to see the soldiers in action on the battlefield. Investigators at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute have invented a way to directly image biological structures at their most fundamental level and in their natural habitats. The technique is a major advancement toward the ultimate goal of imaging biological processes in action at the atomic ...

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Engineering20 Dec 2012

Production of 5-aminovaleric and glutaric acid by metabolically engineered microorganism

We use many different types of chemicals and plastics for the convenience of our everyday life. The current sources of these materials are provided from petrochemical industry, using fossil oil as a raw material. Due to our increased concerns on the environmental problems and fossil resource availability, there has been much interest in producing those chemicals and materials from renewable non-food biomass through biorefineries. For the development of biorefinery process, microorganisms have successfully been employed as the key biocatalysts to produce a wide range of ...

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Medicine20 Dec 2012

Game changing diagnostic & prognostic prostate cancer genetic tests revealed by Jefferson

PHILADELPHIA—Researchers at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson (KCC) (insert link to "Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson" www.kimmelcancercenter.org) have developed potentially game-changing diagnostic and prognostic genetic tests shown to better predict prostate cancer survival outcomes and distinguish clinically-relevant cancers. The team, led by Richard G. Pestell, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the KCC and the Chair of the Department of Cancer Biology at Thomas Jefferson University, report their preclinical findings from a blinded, retrospective analysis of over 350 ...

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Science20 Dec 2012

Can observations of a hardy weed help feed the world?

As the human population increases, so too do the demands and stresses on agriculture. In the January 2013 issue of International Journal of Plant Sciences, Penn State University Waller Professor of Plant Biology Dr. Sarah Assmann explores how the responses to environmental stresses by one small, genetically diverse plant species might illuminate possible approaches to addressing growing human demand for crop products amid decreasing resources. In the article, Dr. Assmann describes how human population growth presents new challenges to twenty-first-century agriculture, ...

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Medicine20 Dec 2012

Serendipity points to new potential target and therapy for melanoma

A University of Colorado Cancer Center study in this month's edition of the Journal of Investigative Dermatology describes a new target and potential treatment for melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer. MicroRNA can decide which genes in a cell's DNA are expressed and which stay silent. Melanoma tends to lack microRNA-26a, which makes the gene SODD go silent. "It's a double negative," says Yiqun Shellman, PhD, investigator at the CU Cancer Center, associate professor at the CU School of Medicine, and the study's co-senior author. "miR-26a works to stop the ...

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Medicine20 Dec 2012

Cultural, social factors identified as barriers to minority participation in stem cell donation

New research examining the role of race and ethnicity in an individual's decision to become a donor for hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) identifies several factors associated with varied participation rates in national donor registries across racial/ethnic groups. Results of this first-of-its-kind study are published online today in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH). Hematopoietic cell transplants serve as valuable treatments for a range of blood disorders, as they generate new, healthy blood cells to replace diseased cells. While ...

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Medicine20 Dec 2012

Poison for cancer cells

This press release is available in German. In their quest for new agents, pharmaceutical researchers test millions of substances all over the world. They like using color-forming reactions to identify new molecules. However, in intensively colored solutions or in the case of mixtures with multiple substances these tests fail. As part of his doctoral thesis, Martin Stein, member of staff at the Chair of Biochemistry at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen, developed a testing reaction based on magnetic resonance data. It helps find a specific pharmaceutical molecule ...

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Technology20 Dec 2012

Clean air: New paints break down nitrogen oxides

The Seventies: Smog alert in the Ruhr area, acid rain, dying spruce trees in the Bavarian Forest. In those days, the solution was filter systems for the smokestacks in the Ruhr area. Today, people in the urban areas are suffering from high levels of pollution that is being caused by, among other things, automotive traffic. Particularly undesired: the nitrogen oxides (NOX). In the meantime, the European Union tightened the limit values even further; in many communities they are being exceeded. Michael Hüben of the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology ...

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Engineering20 Dec 2012

Aldrich Materials Science discovers liquid-free preparation of metal organic frameworks

St. Louis, MO – December 18, 2012 – Researchers at Aldrich Materials Science, a strategic technology initiative of Sigma-Aldrich Corporation (NASDAQ:SIAL) have discovered an innovative way to design an important class of three-dimensional (3D) hybrid structures, Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs), under completely liquid-free conditions. High purity MOF products prepared by the liquid-free process may be ideally suited as rare earth containing materials for sensors and detectors, electronic or magnetic materials. The discovery also extends liquid-free preparation techniques ...

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Medicine20 Dec 2012

Pair of proteins gets brain cells into shape

This press release is available in German. The study conducted by Prof. Frank Bradke's team provides indications on brain development and about the causes of diseases of the nervous system. The results have now been published in "Neuron". Under the microscope, the brain appears as a network of intricate beauty comprising billions of nerve cells (the so-called "neurons") linked together. This network is engaged in a constant process of sharing information. The signals are transmitted from neuron to neuron through fine ramifications of the cell body. However, to acquire ...

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Medicine20 Dec 2012

University of Alberta research working towards treatment for aortic aneurysms in the abdomen

A researcher with the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry and the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute is looking closely at a molecule linked to aortic aneurysms in the abdomen, and her findings could lead to a treatment to reduce swelling of the aortic artery, which would be a life-saving treatment. Zamaneh Kassiri, a professor in the Department of Physiology, and Ratnadeep Basu, a PhD trainee in Kassiri's lab, have been looking at the role of a protein called TIMP3 in the vessels. Their most recent findings, published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry, shows that animal ...

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Environment20 Dec 2012

Death of hemlock trees yields new life for hardwood trees, but at what cost to the ecosystem?

URBANA – Due to the introduction of exotic pests and pathogens, tree species are being eliminated one by one from forest ecosystems. In some cases, scientists can observe immediately how their loss affects the environment, whereas in other cases, creative puzzle solving and analysis reveal unexpected repercussions. In the case of the loss of the hemlock tree, University of Illinois landscape and ecosystem ecologist Jennifer Fraterrigo uncovered a surprising benefit to hardwood species. Throughout much of the eastern United States, a pest called the hemlock woolly adelgid ...

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Energy20 Dec 2012

Discovery may pave way to genetically enhanced biofuel crops

Best known for its ability to transform simmering pots of sugared fruit into marmalades and jams, pectin is a major constituent of plant cell walls and the middle lamella, the sticky layer that glues neighboring plant cells together. Pectin imparts strength and elasticity to the plant and forms a protective barrier against the environment. Several different kinds of pectic compounds combine to form pectin. The relative proportion of each of these depends on the plant species, location within the plant, and environment. Pectic compounds decorated with β-1,4-galactan ...

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Medicine20 Dec 2012

Chromosome 'anchors' organize DNA during cell division

LA JOLLA, CA----For humans to grow and to replace and heal damaged tissues, the body's cells must continually reproduce, a process known as "cell division," by which one cell becomes two, two become four, and so on. A key question of biomedical research is how chromosomes, which are duplicated during cell division so that each daughter cell receives an exact copy of a person's genome, are arranged during this process. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute have discovered a new characteristic of human cell division that may help explain how our DNA is organized in the ...

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