Body

PITTSBURGH, Aug. 25 – Vitamin D may be an effective therapy to treat and even prevent allergy to a common mold that can cause severe complications for patients with cystic fibrosis and asthma, according to researchers from Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Louisiana State University School of Medicine.

A collaborative team of scientists led by researchers at The Medical College of Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, has used the tools of structural biology to understand how a synthetic chemical mimics abscisic acid (ABA), a key stress hormone that helps plants cope with adverse environmental conditions such as drought. The results are published online in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology in advance of print publication later.

A unique experiment at Rice University that forces bacteria into a head-to-head competition for evolutionary dominance has yielded new insights about the way Darwinian selection plays out at the molecular level. An exacting new analysis of the experiment has revealed precisely how specific genetic mutations impart a physical edge in the competition for survival.

The new research, which could lead to more effective strategies to combat antibiotic drug resistance, was the most downloaded article this month in the journal Molecular Systems Biology.

In real estate, location is everything. The same might be said of lipids – those crucial cellular fats and oils that serve as building blocks for cells and as key energy sources for the body.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Scientists at Harvard University have sketched a new map of the "evolutionary labyrinth" species must traverse to reach eusociality, the rare but spectacularly successful social structure where individuals cooperate to raise offspring.

The extent to which vitamin D deficiency may increase susceptibility to a wide range of diseases is dramatically highlighted in research published today. Scientists have mapped the points at which vitamin D interacts with our DNA – and identified over two hundred genes that it directly influences. The results are published today in the journal Genome Research.

August 24, 2010 – Vitamin D insufficiency is a risk factor for a number of diseases and thus, is a growing concern worldwide, as approximately one billion people may be vitamin D deficient. However, the biological basis for vitamin D deficiency predisposing to disease is poorly understood.

PHILADELPHIA –- An international study led by biologists and neuroscientists from the University of Pennsylvania has identified a new genetic risk factor for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease.

Conrado Soria, Ph.D., a research assistant and co-first author of the study, quickly realized that E1B-55K was only half of the story. "The inability of the E1B-55K-mutant virus to replicate in normal cells was not because the virus failed to degrade p53," he explains.

New research uncovers what may be a primary neuron-damaging insult that occurs in an inherited form of a devastating neurodegenerative disorder. The study published in the journal Neuron describes a critical mechanistic link between a mutant protein and disease pathogenesis in an animal model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Great excitement greeted the discovery a few years ago that certain cells from mice and humans could be reprogrammed to become inducible pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), as they hold promise for cell replacement therapy and modeling human disease. Two independent research groups — one led by Ludovic Vallier, at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, and the other led by Holger Willenbring, at the University of California San Francisco — have now shown that both possibilities are true for iPS cell–derived liver cells known as hepatocytes.

Together with cooperation partners from the U.S., the researchers surrounding Prof. Dr. Martina Havenith (Physical Chemistry II of the RUB) describe their discovery in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS).

By creating diseased liver cells from a small sample of human skin, scientists have for the first time shown that stem cells can be used to model a diverse range of inherited disorders. The University of Cambridge researchers' findings, which will hopefully lead to new treatments for those suffering from liver diseases, were published today in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Fire up the citronella-scented tiki torches, and slather on the DEET: Everybody knows these simple precautions repel insects, notably mosquitoes, whose bites not only itch and irritate, but also transmit diseases such as West Nile virus, malaria and dengue.