Virginia Commonwealth University researchers have developed a unique anti-sickling agent that may one day be effective in treating sickle cell disease, a painful and debilitating genetic blood disorder that affects approximately 80,000 Americans.
For the first time, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology in Martinsried near Munich have been able to show how two nerve cells communicate with each other from different hemispheres in the visual center. This astoundingly simple circuit diagram could at a later date provide a model for algorithms to be deployed in technical systems (Nature Neuroscience, Oct. 10, 2006).
Scientists from Max Planck Institute (Germany) and the ESRF have just discovered the way deformation at the nanoscale takes place in a bone by studying it with the synchrotron X-rays. This study explains the enor-mous stability and deformability of bones. The hierarchical structure of bones makes them able to sustain large strains without breaking, de-spite being made of essentially rigid units at the molecular level. The re-sults are published this week in the PNAS online edition.
Antioxidant-based pain killers may one day become a viable alternative to addictive medications such as morphine. Researchers found that synthetic antioxidants practically eradicated pain-like behavior in nearly three-quarters of mice with inflamed hind paws.
A gene variant associated with mental illness goes hand-in-hand with enlargement of a brain region that handles negative emotions, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center and the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System have found.
The American Thoracic Society (ATS) has published a new statement on the pathogenesis, prevention and treatment of liver damage caused by anti-tuberculosis (TB) medications. The statement, which appeared in the October 15 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, gives a review of current national and international literature on drug-induced liver injury (DILI) or hepatotoxicity, a potential side effect of more than 700 drugs approved for use in the United States.
Researchers have announced a breakthrough on a non-hormonal compound known as Adjudin. When injected as an attachment to a modified hormone that seeks out the testes, a low dose is a safe and effective contraceptive in rats. However, another promising drug, miglustat, has failed to make the leap from mice to men.
Many medical school graduates in Canada have not received adequate training in basic surgical skills, such as suturing and tube placements, says a new study published recently in the Canadian Journal of Surgery.
Researchers at the Jackson Laboratory, in collaboration with scientists at Bristol-Myers Squibb Oncology, discovered is that imatinib does not inactivate all BCR-ABL signaling pathways in the cascade. Proteins called SRC kinases are still activated by BCR-ABL in imatinib-treated mouse leukemic cells. Treatment with dasatinib, which inhibits the SRC proteins as well as BCR-ABL, was not only more effective for CML, but also led to complete B-ALL remission.
Rutgers researchers have discovered that the Chlamydia bacterium, which causes a sexually transmitted disease (STD), shares an evolutionary heritage with plants. That shared evolutionary heritage, which is not found in most other bacteria, points to a prime target for development of an effective cure for Chlamydia infections.