Columbia University Medical Center researchers have shown that new, or "de novo," protein-altering mutations—genetic errors that are present in patients but not in their parents—play a role in more than 50 percent of "sporadic" —i.e., not hereditary—cases of schizophrenia. The findings will be published online on August 7, 2011, in Nature Genetics. A group led by Maria Karayiorgou, MD, and Joseph A. Gogos, MD, PhD, examined the genomes of patients with schizophrenia and their families, as well as healthy control groups. All were from the genetically isolated, European-descent ...

AMHERST, Mass. – The discovery of a fundamental, previously unknown property of microbial nanowires in the bacterium Geobacter sulfurreducens that allows electron transport across long distances could revolutionize nanotechnology and bioelectronics, says a team of physicists and microbiologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Their findings reported in the Aug. 7 advance online issue of Nature Nanotechnology may one day lead to cheaper, nontoxic nanomaterials for biosensors and solid state electronics that interface with biological systems. Lead microbiologist ...

eNlight - Taking the Cloud Computing Industry by Storm ESDS is pleased to announce the launch of its eNlight Cloud Computing Platform - the World's first intelligent cloud that truly does justice to the concept of Cloud Computing. eNlight Cloud is an addition to the company's existing portfolio of other software products and managed hosting services and was designed with small to medium sized companies in mind. In the existing Cloud Hosting market most companies offer the option to pay for fixed use. Companies try to market it as flexible hosting by claiming you can ...

HIA-LI, the recognized voice for business on Long Island, is pleased to announce the finalists for the prestigious HIA-LI 17th Annual Business Achievement Awards competition. Winners will be announced during a gala luncheon event held at the Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury, NY, 11:30 AM - 2:00 PM, Tuesday, September 13, 2011. More information about the awards event is available at: http://bit.ly/hia-li-baa-event-2011. "HIA-LI is pleased to recognize these finalists who are among the best run and highest performing companies on Long Island for our HIA-LI Business ...

Long before they knew they were doing it – as long ago as the Wright Brother's first airplane engine – metallurgists were incorporating nanoparticles in aluminum to make a strong, hard, heat-resistant alloy. The process is called solid-state precipitation, in which, after the melt has been quickly cooled, atoms of alloying metals migrate through a solid matrix and gather themselves in dispersed particles measured in billionths of a meter, only a few-score atoms wide. Key to the strength of these precipitation-hardened alloys is the size, shape, and uniformity of the ...

A new resource to define the roles of microRNAs is announced today in Nature Biotechnology. The resource, called mirKO, gives researchers access to tools to investigate the biological role and significance for human health of these enigmatic genes. mirKO is a "library" of mutant mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells in which individual, or clustered groups of microRNA genes, have been deleted. Using these tools researchers can create cells or mice lacking specific microRNAs, study expression using fluorescent markers, or inactivate the gene in specific tissues or at specific ...

Chapel Hill, NC – Cells are the building blocks of the human body. They are a focus of scientific study, because when things go wrong at the cellular and molecular level the consequences for human health are often significant. A new finding based on multiple collaborations between UNC and Duke scientists over several years points to new avenues for investigation of cell metabolism that may provide insights into diseases ranging from neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease to certain types of cancers. The finding, published today in the ...

Animal's brains are only roughly aware of how high-up they are in space, meaning that in terms of altitude the brain's 'map' of space is surprisingly flat, according to new research. In a study published online today in Nature Neuroscience, scientists studied cells in or near a part of the brain called the hippocampus, which forms the brain's map of space, to see whether they were activated when rats climbed upwards. The study, supported by the Wellcome Trust, looked at two types of cells known to be involved in the brain's representation of space: grid cells, which ...

European legislation restricts animal testing within the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries and companies are increasingly looking at alternative systems to ensure that their products are safe to use. Research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Genomics demonstrates that the response of laboratory grown human cells can now be used to classify chemicals as sensitizing, or non-sensitizing, and can even predict the strength of allergic response, so providing an alternative to animal testing. Allergic contact dermatitis can result in itching and eczema ...

August 8th, 2011, Shenzhen, China – BGI, the world's largest genomics organization, Peking University Shenzhen Hospital and Shenzhen Second People's Hospital, announced today that the study on frequent mutations of chromatin remodeling genes in transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) of the bladder was published online in Nature Genetics. This study provides a valuable genetic basis for future studies on TCC, suggesting that aberration of chromatin regulation might be one of the features of bladder cancer. Bladder cancer is the ninth most common type of cancer worldwide, which ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (August 7, 2011) – The human genome is peppered with repeated DNA elements that can vary from a few to thousands of consecutive copies of the same sequence. During meiosis—the cell division that produces sperm and eggs—repetitive elements place the genome at risk for dangerous rearrangements from genome reshuffling. This recombination typically does not occur in repetitive DNA, in part because much of it is assembled into specialized heterochromatin. Other mechanisms that restrain recombination in repetitive DNA have remained elusive, until now. In a ...

Philadelphia, PA, August 8, 2011 – Researchers have gained a new understanding of the way in which growing tumors are fed and how this growth can be slowed via angiogenesis inhibitors that eliminate the blood supply to tumors. This represents a step forward towards developing new anti-cancer drug therapies. The results of this study have been published today in the September issue of The American Journal of Pathology. "The central role of capillary sprouting in tumor vascularization makes it an attractive target for anticancer therapy. Our observations suggest, however, ...

Philadelphia, PA, August 8, 2011 – Researchers have demonstrated the feasibility of focused fetal gene expression analysis of target genes found in amniotic fluid using Standardized NanoArray PCR (SNAP) technology. This analysis could be used to monitor fetal development, enabling clinicians to determine very early in pregnancy whether fetal organ systems are developing normally. The study appears today in the September issue of The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics. Using a previously developed SNAP gene panel as proof of concept, investigators from the Floating Hospital ...

Two new studies have found that smokers who tend to take their first cigarette soon after they wake up in the morning may have a higher risk of developing lung and head and neck cancers than smokers who refrain from lighting up right away. Published early online in Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the results may help identify smokers who have an especially high risk of developing cancer and would benefit from targeted smoking interventions to reduce their risk. Cigarette smoking increases one's likelihood of developing various types of ...

A new technique that stimulates heart muscle cells with low-energy light raises the possibility of a future light-controlled pacemaker, researchers reported in Circulation: Arrhythmia & Electrophysiology, a journal of the American Heart Association. "Electronic cardiac pacemakers and defibrillators are well established and successful technologies, but they are not without problems, including the breakage of metal leads, limited battery life and interference from strong magnetic fields," said Emilia Entcheva, Ph.D., senior author of the study and associate professor of ...

Siblings of those who have been hospitalized with potentially lethal blood clots in the legs or pelvis are more likely to also suffer the disorder than those with healthy siblings, according to research published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. The Swedish study is the first to show a direct correlation between venous thromboembolism (VTE) and family risk in a nationwide setting, sorted by age and gender. VTE consists of deep vein thrombosis (DVT), which typically involves blood clots that form in the deep veins of the leg or pelvis, and ...

An undergraduate student has overcome a major hurdle in the development of invisibility cloaks by adding an optical device into their design that not only remains invisible itself, but also has the ability to slow down light. The optical device, known as an 'invisible sphere', would slow down all of the light that approaches a potential cloak, meaning that the light rays would not need to be accelerated around the cloaked objects at great speeds ― a requirement that has limited invisibility cloaks to work only in a specified region of the visible spectrum. This ...

The development of drugs for brain-related conditions is not an efficient process; only 8% of candidate drugs that enter clinical trials gain FDA approval. A key reason for this low success rate is a lack of preclinical tests that accurately predict drug efficacy and detect unwanted side effects. But now, Jeremy Nathans and colleagues, at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, have developed a new preclinical approach that they hope can be used alongside current strategies to guide more efficient drug development for brain-related conditions. In the study, ...

EDITOR'S PICK: Drug development in the blink of an eye The development of drugs for brain-related conditions is not an efficient process; only 8% of candidate drugs that enter clinical trials gain FDA approval. A key reason for this low success rate is a lack of preclinical tests that accurately predict drug efficacy and detect unwanted side effects. But now, Jeremy Nathans and colleagues, at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, have developed a new preclinical approach that they hope can be used alongside current strategies to guide more efficient ...

Parents often ask their doctors for advice on toilet training young children, and a new article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/site/embargo/cmaj110830.pdf summarizes current approaches and evidence to help physicians respond to these queries. "Toilet training is felt to be a natural process that occurs with development, yet very little scientific information is available for physicians who care for children," writes Dr. Darcie Kiddoo, Divisions of Pediatric Surgery and Urology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—August 8, 2011—A scientist at the Gladstone Institutes has discovered how gene regulation can make hearts beat out of sync, offering new hope for the millions who suffer from a potentially fatal heart condition. In a paper being published this week in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Gladstone Investigator Benoit G. Bruneau, PhD announces the identity of the molecular regulator that uses electrical impulses to synchronize each heartbeat. Abnormalities in heartbeat synchronization, called heart arrhythmias, ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – An early phase multiple myeloma trial has unexpectedly revealed that the drug lenalidomide interacts with another protein in cells that affect its dose level in the body, say researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James) who conducted the study. Lenalidomide is an anti-inflammatory drug, and more than 390 clinical trials have been initiated to study its activity in a number of cancers and other diseases. The study found that lenalidomide ...

Many people use herbal medicines believing them to be safe simply because they are 'natural'. However many of these products have potentially dangerous interactions with other drugs and can have similar side effects to conventional drugs. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine reveals that many over-the-counter herbal products do not contain any of the key information required for safe use. Despite their wholesome image, many herbal products have adverse effects and a third of users are completely unaware of any risks. Researchers ...

Many herbal remedies available over-the-counter in pharmacies and health food shops are still lacking important information needed for safe use, according to University of Leeds researchers. In April this year, a new EU law came into force regulating the sale of traditional herbal medicines, such as St John's wort and Echinacea. These products must now contain clear information on possible side effects, how they could interact with other prescribed medicines and whether people with existing illnesses should take them or not. They are clearly marked with the THR logo showing ...

Researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center have shown chimpanzees have a significant bias for prosocial behavior. This, the study authors report, is in contrast to previous studies that positioned chimpanzees as reluctant altruists and led to the widely held belief that human altruism evolved in the last six million years only after humans split from apes. The current study findings are available in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. According to Yerkes researchers Victoria Horner, PhD, Frans de Waal, PhD, and their ...