A new RNA map, created by a team of researchers at Rockefeller University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, shows for the first time how the specific location of short snippets of RNA affects the way that alternative splicing is controlled in the brain.
Too much of a signaling protein called insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) may fan the flames of cancer, while too little of the protein may cause short stature, dementia and osteoporosis. New research investigates how the growth hormone/IGF system is affected by the important tumor suppressor gene p53. This interplay of two signaling pathways reinforces questions about the long-term risks of prescribing growth hormone, while suggesting a future new avenue for cancer therapy.
Movement ecology is on the move, with the world’s first international research group on this topic having begun its work this fall at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute for Advanced Studies.
A research team from Utah State University, Virginia Tech, and Northwestern University asked whether the biological process for nitrogen fixation, carried out by microbes that contain the enzyme nitrogenase, follows the same pathway as recently reported chemical methods. Their research method resulted in the ability to witness steps in the biological process that enables some microorganisms to convert atmospheric nitrogen to nutrients.
In a recent experiment, to be published in Nature on Nov. 9, Dr. Matthias Meschke and professor Jukka Pekola, together with Dr. Wiebke Guichard, a coworker from French CNRS, investigated heat exchange between two small pieces of normal metal, connected to each other only via superconducting leads. The results demonstrate that at very low temperatures heat is transferred by electromagnetic radiation.
Scientists in Australia have discovered that in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) there are “good” and “evil” clones of the same type of ALL cell. The “evil” cells are clones that have a pre-existing resistance to drugs used for treating ALL, and their presence in a patient means that person will inevitably relapse after chemotherapy, according to research presented at the 18th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics.
Preliminary results from a phase II clinical trial have provided the first evidence that treating people with kidney cancer with bevacizumab and erlotinib before surgery is safe, effective and may prolong patients’ survival, the 18th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics heard on Thursday.
Researchers investigating ways of prompting the immune system to recognise and kill tumour cells have found that a drug containing parts of the diptheria toxin appears to work well in patients with advanced melanoma, according to research presented at the 18th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics on Thursday.
An international professional society has issued a patient?s bill of rights for the treatment of eating disorders, conditions that affect an estimated 30 million Americans, most of them young women. For 2 million, symptoms will progress to full-blown anorexia nervosa and approximately 10 percent will die from the disease. Treatment is often complex and typically involves not only the patient, but friends and family as well.
Multiple research projects across three cooperating universities are demonstrating progress that is enabling American producers, processors and consumers to maintain a safe food supply. The Food Safety Consortium summarized that work in its recently completed annual report for the 2005-06 fiscal year.