Medicine

Hippos spend lots of time in the water and now it turns out (or researchers argue), they are the closest living relative to whales. It also turns out, the two are swimming in a bit of controversy. Jessica Theodor, an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Calgary, and her colleague Jonathan Geisler, associate professor at Georgia Southern University are disputing a recent study that creates a different family tree for the hippo. That research was published in Nature in December 2007 by J. G. M. Thewissen, a professor at Northeastern Ohio Universities…

Providing another tool to help to understand gene regulation on a global scale, a nationwide research team has identified and mapped 55,000 enhancers, short regions of DNA that act to enhance or boost the expression of genes. The map, which will be published March 18 in the advance on-line edition of the journal Nature, will help scientists understand how cells control expression of genes specific to their particular cell type. "Our studies show that enhancers play much more prominent role than previously appreciated in cell-type-specific gene expression, helping to explain what causes cells…

New Orleans, LA – Research conducted by Allison Berrier, PhD, Assistant Professor of Oral and Craniofacial Biology at the LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Dentistry, and colleagues, provides insights that may help scientists design novel approaches to control wound healing and fight diseases such as cancer and fibrosis. The paper, β1 Integrin Cytoplasmic Domain Residues Selectively Modulate Fibronectin Matrix Assembly and Cell Spreading through Talin and Akt-1, will be published in the March 20, 2009 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. The research team also…

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers are investigating a new way to block reproduction of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) – targeting not the virus itself but the human genes the virus exploits in its life cycle. In the March 19 Cell Host & Microbe, they report finding nearly 100 genes that support the replication of HCV and show that blocking several of them can suppress viral replication in cultured cells. "We identified a large number of genes that have not been previously known to be involved in hepatitis C replication," says Raymond Chung, MD, director of Hepatology in the…

LA JOLLA, Calif., March 18, 2009 -- Investigators at Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) have learned that a protein called Shp2 plays a critical role in the pathways that control decisions for differentiation or self-renewal in both human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs). The research, led by Gen-Sheng Feng, Ph.D., differs with some earlier findings that suggested hESCs and mESCs differentiate as a result of different signaling mechanisms. The discovery that Shp2 has a conserved role between mice and humans suggests an interesting common…

The elephant shark, a primitive deep-sea fish that belongs to the oldest living family of jawed vertebrates, can see color much like humans can. This discovery, published in the March 2009 issue of Genome Research, may enhance scientists' understanding of how color vision evolved in early vertebrates over the last 450 million years of evolution. "It was unexpected that a 'primitive' vertebrate like the elephant shark had the potential for color vision like humans. The discovery shows that it has acquired the traits for color vision during evolution in parallel with humans," said Byrappa…

A joint venture from researchers from the Helmholtz-Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig, the Otto-von-Guericke-University in Magdeburg, and the Karolinska institute in Sweden have taken an in-depth look at the connection between flu infection and pneumonia. Their results, recently released in the scientific journal "PLoS One", have disproven a common theory about flu-like pneumonia. Some viral infections trigger a decrease of immune cells in the blood – a so-called "lymphopenia". The reasons behind it and whether this is the case with influenza are unknown. To investigate the…

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have discovered a mode of action for mysterious but diagnostic protein snarls found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients that suggests a one-two punch of therapy may be needed to combat the neurodegenerative disease. Alzheimer's disease, which may affect as many as 5 million Americans and is among the most costly diseases to society in the United States and Europe, is characterized by two distinctive protein malformations: amyloid plaques and tau tangles. Amyloid plaques are sticky deposits made up of a short protein…

FINDINGS: Scientists at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and the National University of Singapore have discovered the first microRNA (miRNA) capable of directly tamping down the activity of the well known tumor-suppressor gene, p53, While p53 functions to prevent tumor formation, the p53 gene is thought to malfunction in more than 50% of cancerous tumors. RELEVANCE: The study reports the first time a miRNA has been shown to directly affect the p53 protein level, although researchers have previously identified other genes and miRNAs that indirectly affect p53's activity.…

In the past few years, a number of anti-cancer drugs have been developed which are directed selectively against specific key molecules of tumor cells. Among these is an antibody called cetuximab, which attaches to a protein molecule that is found in large amounts on the surface of many types of cancer cells. When this surface molecule, called epidermal growth factor receptor, or EGF-R for short, is blocked by cetuximab, the cancer cell receives less signals stimulating cell division. Clinical studies of non-small cell lung cancer, which is the most frequent type of lung cancer, have shown so…