Body

A quarter of drug trials submitted in support of new drug applications to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) remain unpublished five years after the fact, says new research published in the open access journal PLoS Medicine.

If you have had a hard day at work, you may change your eating habits, perhaps favoring comfort food, but you don't suddenly develop the ability to eat the plate and cutlery. A new paper, published in this week's issue of PLoS Biology, describes an evolutionary mechanism in yeast that allows cells to respond to environmental stress in novel ways, including digesting materials that they were previously unable to use – though admittedly, they aren't eating crockery just yet!

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (November 25, 2008) – Under stress, yeast cells can unleash a remarkable mechanism based on protein-misfolding that gives them new characteristics without requiring genetic mutations.

Researchers in Whitehead Member Susan Lindquist's lab now have shown that this mechanism is triggered much more often as the cells undergo stress, suggesting that it is tailored to play exactly this role in evolution.

The mechanism is based on a prion—a protein misfolded into an unusual configuration that can change its function within a cell.

Artemisinin combination therapies (ACTs) could be almost as effective in reducing transmission of malaria as insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs) in areas of low transmission, a study based on data from Tanzania has found. In high transmission areas, long-acting antimalarial regimens may be needed to achieve significant transmission reductions.

Contrary to common scientific belief, the length of a sperm's tail does not always determine how fast it can swim. Research published in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology has shown that in the counter-intuitive microscopic world in which sperm operate, streamlining and longer tails don't always provide a speed advantage.

BOSTON – Nov. 24, 2008 – Researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center have shown that insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells can form after birth or after injury from progenitor cells within the pancreas that were not beta cells, a finding that contradicts a widely-cited earlier study that had concluded this is not possible.

The study, published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition, identifies the source of the progenitor cells as being pancreatic duct cells.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Researchers in the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy have developed a model for predicting risk of recurrence in early stage colon cancer patients, and have used the model to also predict sensitivity to chemotherapy and targeted therapy regimens.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Bacterial decay was once viewed as fossilization's mortal enemy, but new research suggests bacterial biofilms may have actually helped preserve the fossil record's most vulnerable stuff -- animal embryos and soft tissues.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the Moores UCSD Cancer Center have discovered what could be a novel drug target for an often difficult-to-treat form of leukemia. The investigators have identified a unique "signature" or pattern of a specific family of enzymes in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), the most common form of adult leukemia.

Berkeley - The utility of sex, according to an intriguing new theory of evolutionary biology, may be its ability to promote genes that play well with many other partners rather than those that shine with just one specific set of genes.

This idea of genetic mixability, described in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of Nov. 24, hits on the difficulty evolutionary biologists have had in understanding sex, specifically its role in population genetics and Darwin's survival-of-the-fittest mantra.

Los Angeles, Calif. Nov. 24, 2008—Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) have found that inactivating a specific biomarker for aggressive prostate cancer blocks the development of prostate cancer in animal models.

Researchers say the upcoming study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—now available online—may lead to a novel cancer therapy for humans.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- MIT researchers have shown how a cell motor protein exerts the force to move, enabling functions such as cell division.

Kinesin, a motor protein that also carries neurotransmitters, "walks" along cellular beams known as microtubules. For the first time, the MIT team has shown at a molecular level how kinesin generates the force needed to step along the microtubules.

CINCINNATI – Scientists have identified a gene critical to lung maturation in newborns and the production of surfactant, which lines lung tissues and prevents the lungs from collapsing.

In a study posted online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), investigators at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center deleted the Foxm1 gene in embryonic mice.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – A growth hormone that had shown some promise for treating people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) showed no benefit in a new study published in the November 25, 2008, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Two previous, shorter studies using growth hormone insulin-like growth factor-1, or IGF-1, to treat ALS had conflicting results. A North American study found that the drug was beneficial, while a European study found no benefit.

Breast cancer rates increased significantly in four Norwegian counties after women there began undergoing mammography every two years, according to a report in the November 24 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Rates among regularly screened women remained higher than rates among women of the same age who were screened only once after six years, suggesting that some of the cancers detected by mammography may have spontaneously regressed had they not been discovered and treated.