Scientists have discovered a causal link between the gene for a small protein involved in the formation of blood vessels and the development of some forms of Amyotrophoic Lateral Sclerosis. Published in the journal Human Molecular Genetics, the findings could provide a basis for developing methods for halting the progression of some forms of the disease.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health has awarded the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine a $1.18 million grant to develop rabies virus vaccines. This award is the continuation of a previous four-year $837,000 grant issued by NIAID in 2002 to initiate the study.
The chemical process known as acetylation plays a central role in cytokine receptor signal transduction – a fundamental biochemical cascade inside cells that controls the activity of antiviral and tumor-suppressing genes.
A Leicester cancer research project, which receives funding from Hope Against Cancer (formerly The Hope Foundation,) is investigating whether an extract from bilberries can prevent or delay the onset of certain cancers.
The benefits of applying technological know how to patient care were demonstrated by Prime Minister Gordon Brown at Imperial College London yesterday.
Both extensive psychological research and personal experiences confirm that events that happen during heightened states of emotion such as fear, anger and joy are far more memorable than less dramatic occurrences. In a report this week in Cell, Johns Hopkins researchers and their collaborators at Cold Spring Harbor and New York University have identified the likely biological basis for this: a hormone released during emotional arousal “primes” nerve cells to remember events by increasing their chemical sensitivity at sites where nerves rewire to form new memory circuits.
American children are drinking too little milk and what they are consuming is too high in fat, according to a Penn State study. “There is a strong correlation between dairy consumption and calcium,” says Sibylle Kranz, assistant professor of nutritional sciences. “While there is calcium in fortified orange juice, for example, it is not as bioavailable as that found in milk.” She notes that people need to take calcium with vitamin D and some protein for optimal use in the body.
The Hartford Center for Geriatric Nursing Excellence in the University of Iowa College of Nursing, and two other Hartford centers in the nation, have been funded for a four-year $1.2 million grant to ensure that nurses have the most recent evidence-based guidelines for caring for elders with mental health issues.
The University of Illinois at Chicago College of Nursing has received a $4.1 million federal grant to develop ways to improve the early growth and development of premature infants who have two or more social-environmental risks such as poverty or minority status.
The benefits of motherhood: Fetal Cell “Transplant” could be a hidden link between childbirth and reduced risk of breast cancer. Some benefits of motherhood are intangible, but one has been validated through biostatistical research: women who bear children have a reduced risk of developing breast cancer.