Medicine

These new insights represent an important contribution to future clinical therapeutic approaches. The study was published in the prestigious science journal Nature and will be a central topic of the international symposium on the molecular mechanisms of hematopoiesis, which will take place in Munich from April 2nd to 4th. The findings on the molecular mechanisms of blood formation (hematopoiesis) will be presented in Munich at the international symposium "Molecular Mechanisms of Normal and Malignant Hematopoiesis" from April 2nd to 4th. A question that has puzzled researchers for decades…

Researchers at the University of Rochester have developed a novel optical technique that permits rapid analysis of single human immune cells using only light. Availability of such a technique means that immunologists and other cellular researchers may soon be able to observe the responses of individual cells to various stimuli, rather than relying on aggregate statistical data from large cell populations. Until now scientists have not had a non-invasive way to see how human cells, like T cells or cancer cells, activate individually and evolve over time. As reported today in a special…

March 31, 2009, New York, NY—Scientists at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health have discovered that astrocytes, supportive cells in the brain that are not derived from an immune cell lineage, respond to a molecule that mimics a viral infection using cellular machinery similar to that used by classical immune cells in the blood. While scientists have been aware of the capacity of astrocytes to trigger an innate immune response when encountering a foreign agent, this work provides a new understanding of the complex mechanisms responsible for induction and regulation of…

(WASHINGTON, March 31, 2009) - For the first time, scientists have shown that amniotic fluid (the protective liquid surrounding an embryo) may be a potential new source of stem cells for therapeutic applications. The study was prepublished online on February 12, 2009, in Blood, the official journal of the American Society of Hematology. "Building on observations made by other scientists, our research team wondered whether stem cells could be detected in amniotic fluid. We looked at the capacity of these cells to form new blood cells both inside and outside the body, and also compared their…

Cells isolated from the eye that many scientists believed were retinal stem cells are, in fact, normal adult cells, investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have found. If retinal stem cells could be obtained, they might provide the basis for treatments to restore sight to millions of people with blindness caused by retinal degeneration. Stem cells are immature cells capable of producing large numbers of adult cells, such as retinal cells. Researchers believe that stem cells offer the promise of regenerating tissue in organs such as the eye, brain and heart, damaged by trauma or…

WHAT: Researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and at Ghent University in Ghent, Belgium, have identified a new role for certain lung cells in the immune response to airborne allergens. Many foreign substances, called antigens, are inhaled daily, but the lungs have mechanisms that usually prevent people from making unwanted immune responses to these materials. Sometimes, however, immune responses are generated to these substances, resulting in allergic responses and asthma. Scientists have been working to…

Bacteria are single cell organisms with no nervous system or brain. So how do individual bacterial cells living as part of a complex community called a biofilm "decide" between different physiological processes (such as movement or producing the "glue" that forms the biofilm)? In the prestigious 2009 Fleming lecture, given at the Society for General Microbiology's meeting in Harrogate, (Monday 30 March) Dr Nicola Stanley-Wall from the University of Dundee explained that it is important to understand how biofilms form as they are often the basis of chronic infections and also of…

The benefits to animals of omega 3 fatty acids in fish oils have been well documented – helping the heart and circulatory system, improving meat quality and reducing methane emissions. These last two benefits may only apply to cows but lowering emissions is important for the environment, as methane given off by farm animals is a major contribution to greenhouse gas levels. Today (Monday 30 March) researchers from University College Dublin reported that by including 2% fish oil in the diet of cattle they achieved a reduction in the amount of methane released by the animals. Speaking at the…

Micro-organisms occurring naturally in coastal mudflats have an essential role to play in cleaning up pollution by breaking down petrochemical residues. Research by Dr Efe Aganbi and colleagues from the University of Essex, presented at the Society for General Microbiology's meeting at Harrogate today (Monday 30 April), reveals essential differences in the speed of degradation of the chemicals depending on whether or not oxygen is present. In aerobic conditions (where oxygen is present), benzene, toluene and naphthalene, which all occur in petroleum, were rapidly degraded by microbes. In the…

Researchers have identified a new cancer gene - one that is common to many cancers and affects the most basic regulation of our genes. The new example - a gene on the X chromosome called UTX - is found in 10% of cases of multiple myeloma and 8% of esophageal cancers. UTX plays a role in overall regulation of the activity of many genes and it is possible that other genes with similar roles will also be found to be involved in different tumor types. This is the first example of mutations in a gene of this functional class. The finding arose from a study of mutations in 4000 genes in kidney…