Body

Scientists have identified a new way to inhibit a molecule that is critical for HIV pathogenesis. The research, published by Cell Press in the January 16th issue of the journal Molecular Cell, presents a target for development of antiretroviral therapeutics that are likely to complement existing therapies and provide additional protection from HIV and AIDS.

By carefully selecting which varieties of food crops to cultivate, much of Europe and North America could be cooled by up to 1°C during the summer growing season, say researchers from the University of Bristol, UK. This is equivalent to an annual global cooling of over 0.1°C, almost 20% of the total global temperature increase since the Industrial Revolution.

With many local and national governments currently debating proposals to raise alcohol taxes, a timely new study published online today in the February edition of Addiction journal finds that the more alcoholic beverages cost, the less likely people are to drink. And when they do drink, they drink less. After analyzing 112 studies spanning nearly four decades, researchers documented a concrete association between the amount of alcohol people drink and its cost.

José Luis Lavín Trueba, a graduate in biology and biochemistry from the University of Salamanca (Spain) and currently collaborator in the Genetic and Microbiology Research Group at the Public University of Navarre, has enhanced the use of bioinformatic tools for the identification and annotation of certain fungal and bacterial genes.

The public ranks action on health care highly as part of efforts to stem the impact of the economic recession and also views reforming health care as one of the top priorities for President-elect Obama and Congress, according to a new national survey conducted by researchers from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health.

Researchers have unraveled crucial details of how aging causes broken bones to heal slowly, or not at all, according to study results published today in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. The research team also successfully conducted preclinical tests on a potential new class of treatments designed to "rescue" healing capability lost to aging.

Philadelphia, 15 January 2009 – Paintballs can cause severe and 'visually devastating' eye injuries, especially when used in unsupervised settings without proper eye protection, reports a study in the February issue of the American Journal of Ophthalmology (www.AJO.com), published by Elsevier.

PHILADELPHIA – Genetic variations in DNA repair patterns may increase risk of pancreatic cancer by as much as threefold or decrease it by as much as 77 percent, depending on the genes involved, according to a report published in the January 15, 2009, issue of Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

PHARMACOGENETICS OF ANTICANCER AGENTS

HOUSTON - Abnormalities in genes that repair mistakes in DNA replication may help identify people who are at high risk of developing pancreatic cancer, a research team from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reports in the Jan. 15 issue of Clinical Cancer Research.

Defects in these critical DNA repair genes may act alone or in combination with traditional risk factors known to increase an individual's likelihood of being diagnosed with this very aggressive type of cancer.

Chickens kept in litter-based housing systems, including free-range chickens, are more prone to disease than chickens kept in cages, according to a study published in BioMed Central's open access journal Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica.

Stockholm, Sweden -- Midlife coffee drinking can decrease the risk of dementia/Alzheimer's disease (AD) later in life. This conclusion is made in a Finnish Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Aging and Dementia (CAIDE) Study published in the January 2009 issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease (Volume 16:1).

January 14, 2009 – (BRONX, NY) – Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have identified a small intracellular protein that helps cells commit suicide. The finding, reported as the "paper of the week" in the January 16th print issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, could lead to drugs for combating cancer and other diseases characterized by overproduction of cells.

STANFORD, Calif. — Doctors may be implanting too many artery-opening stents and could improve patient outcomes — and ultimately save lives — if they did more in-depth measurements of blood flow in the vessels to the heart. That's the finding of a study, to be published Jan. 15 in the New England Journal of Medicine, that evaluated the benefits of a new diagnostic tool to measure blood flow and determine whether stenting was the best option.

Boston, MA – A collection of hospitals in eight cities around the globe has successfully demonstrated that the use of a simple surgical checklist during major operations can lower the incidence of deaths and complications by more than one third. The year-long study was led by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) in collaboration with the World Health Organization, and the results are published Online First on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 on the website of the New England Journal of Medicine (www.nejm.org) .