Body

ATLANTA - Physicians treating patients with shock should consider norepinephrine instead of dopamine as a tool for stabilizing blood pressure, according to an editorial in the March 4, 2010, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

Jerrold Levy, MD, FAHA, professor and deputy chair for research, Department of Anesthesiology, Emory University School of Medicine, and co-director of cardiothoracic anesthesiology, Emory Healthcare, authored the editorial.

Biologging – the use of miniaturized electronic tags to track animals in the wild – has revealed previously unknown and suprising behaviors, movements, physiology and environmental preferences of a wide variety of ocean animals. For instance, biologgers have recorded 5,000 foot (1,550 m) dives by Atlantic bluefin tuna, followed journeys of elephant seals halfway across the Pacific from their breeding beaches, and observed annual 40,000 mile migrations of sooty shearwaters – the longest recorded for any animal.

Alternative approaches to medicine are stock-in-trade in the ASU laboratory of microbiologist Shelley Haydel.

So when ASU senior Jenny Koehl joined Haydel's investigative team seeking firsthand knowledge of how basic research is done, how drugs are tested and potential cures produced, she found it and much more.

With the guidance of Tanya Cunningham, a graduate student mentor, Koehl has helped advance understanding about the antibacterial activity of clay minerals and their ability to kill what the best antibiotics on the market can't touch.

MAYWOOD, Ill. -- A daily dose of vitamin D may just be what Chicagoans need to get through the long winter, according to researchers at Loyola University Chicago Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing (MNSON). This nutrient lifts mood during cold weather months when days are short and more time is spent indoors.

ITHACA, N.Y. — Cornell researchers have found a protein that may lead to a new way to control mosquitoes that spread dengue fever, yellow fever and other diseases when they feed on humans: Prevent them from urinating as they feed on blood.

The work may lead to the development of new insecticides to disrupt the mosquito's renal system, which contributes to a mosquito's survival after feeding on blood.

PORTLAND, Ore. — Women aged 50 to 76 who take estrogen plus progestin may have an increased risk of lung cancer, according to a new study published in the pre-print online edition of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Although the risk is "duration-dependent," with women taking HRT for 10-plus years at greatest risk of developing lung cancer, an acceptable length of HRT has yet to be determined, the researchers report.

Understanding how plants defend themselves from bacterial infections may help researchers understand how people and other animals could be better protected from such pathogens.

That's the idea behind a study to observe a specific bacteria that infects tomatoes but normally does not bother the common laboratory plant arabidopsis. Researchers hoped to understand how infection is selective in various organisms, according to a Texas AgriLife Research scientist.

The experimental drug belatacept can prevent graft rejection in kidney transplant recipients while better preserving kidney function when compared with standard immunosuppressive drugs, data from two international phase III clinical trials show.

The results are published in the March issue of the American Journal of Transplantation.

DURHAM, N.C. – An early test for fungal infections that measures how a patient's genes are responding could save the lives of some very sick patients. Researchers at Duke University's Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy have devised an early gene-expression test for the fungal pathogen Candida that worked in mice.

PHILADELPHIA – Gene therapy for a severe inherited blindness, which produced dramatic improvements last year in 12 children and young adults who received the treatment in a clinical trial, has cleared another hurdle. The same research team that conducted the human trial now reports that a study in animals has shown that a second injection of genes into the opposite, previously untreated eye is safe and effective, with no signs of interference from unwanted immune reactions following the earlier injection.

SAN FRANCISCO—March 3, 2010 -- With obesity and obesity-related diseases epidemic in the developed world, a clear understanding of how metabolism is regulated is crucial. One of the key metabolic pathways involves the oxidation of fat. In the current edition of the journal Nature, scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology report on a new mechanism that governs this pathway and in the process identified a novel potential therapeutic target for controlling fat metabolism.

SALT LAKE CITY, March 3, 2010 _ Until now, paleontologists have generally believed that the closest relatives of dinosaurs possibly looked a little smaller in size, walked on two legs and were carnivorous. However, a research team including Randall Irmis, curator of paleontology at the Utah Museum of Natural History and assistant professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Utah has made a recent discovery to dispel this hypothesis.

BOSTON -- Inflammation is at the root of most serious complications occurring after both infection and injury. But while the molecular course of events that leads from microbial infections to the inflammatory condition called sepsis is fairly well understood, it is far less clear how and why physical injury can result in a similarly dangerous inflammatory response.

Paleontologists announced the discovery of a dinosaur-like animal—one that shared many characteristics with dinosaurs but fell just outside of the dinosaur family tree—living 10 million years earlier than the oldest known dinosaurs. The researchers conclude that dinosaurs and other close relatives such as pterosaurs (flying reptiles) might have also lived much earlier than previously thought.

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, March 3, 2010—Two teams of researchers—including Los Alamos National Laboratory theoretical biologists Bette Korber, Will Fischer, Sydeaka Watson, and James Szinger—have announced an HIV vaccination strategy that has been shown to expand the breadth and depth of immune responses in rhesus monkeys. Rhesus monkeys provide the best animal model currently available for testing HIV vaccines.