Body

Lung cancer is one of the most aggressive types of cancer and the most common cause of death from this disease worldwide. Despite the progress in the molecular biology of lung cancer achieved in recent years, the mechanisms used by tumor cells to grow and spread throughout the body are not yet completely understood. This lack of information is responsible for the limited range of available therapeutic possibilities and their undesirable side effects.

Sperm swim, lung cells sweep mucus away, and the cells in the female Fallopian tube move eggs from the ovary to the uterus. Underlying these phenomena are flagella – slender, hair-like structures extending from the surface of the cells, that bend, beat or wave rhythmically. In the latest issue of the journal Developmental Cell*, scientists from the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC), in Portugal, have dissected how sperm cells of the fruit fly build their flagella.

Scientists have identified new genetic alterations underlying a high-risk subtype of the most common childhood cancer that could be effectively targeted with existing leukemia therapies.

Burkitt lymphoma is a malignant, fast-growing tumor that originates from a subtype of white blood cells called B lymphocytes of the immune system and often affects internal organs and the central nervous system. Now Dr. Sandrine Sander and Professor Klaus Rajewsky of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch have identified a key element that transforms the immune cells into malignant lymphoma cells. They developed a mouse model that closely resembles Burkitt lymphoma in humans and that may help to test new treatment strategies (Cancer Cell)*.

August 13, 2012 ─ (BRONX, NY) ─ Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have made a discovery involving mice and humans that could mean that people with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a rare and usually fatal cancer, are a step closer to new treatment options. Their study results were published online today in Cancer Cell.

A broken chromosome is like an unmoored beansprout circling in search of attachment. If a cell tries to replicate itself with broken chromosomes, the cell will be killed and so it would very much like to find its lost end. Often, it finds a workable substitute: another nearby chromosome. When a broken chromosome attaches to another, or when chromosomes use a similar process to exchange genetic material, you've got a translocation – genes end up fused to other genes, encoding a new protein they shouldn't.

A research team at the University of California, Davis, has found that important and resourceful bacteria in the baby microbiome can ferret out nourishment from a previously unknown source, possibly helping at-risk infants break down components of breast milk.

Breast milk is amazingly intricate, providing all of the nutrients necessary to sustain and strengthen infants in the first months of life. Moreover, this natural source of nutrition provides protection from infections, allergies and many other illnesses.

Whether you're old, have been ill, or suffered an injury, you've watched gloomily as your muscles have atrophied. The deterioration of muscle—even slight or gradual—is about as common to the human condition as breathing.

Yet despite its everyday nature, scientists know little about what causes skeletal muscles to atrophy. They know proteins are responsible, but there are thousands of possible suspects, and parsing the key actors from the poseurs is tricky.

The ingredient 2,3-pentanedione (PD), used to impart the flavor and aroma of butter in microwave popcorn, is a respiratory hazard that can also alter gene expression in the brain of rats. Manufacturers started using PD when another butter flavoring, diacetyl, was found to cause bronchiolitis obliterans, a life-threatening and nonreversible lung disease in workers who inhaled the substance.

A popular class of diabetes drugs increases patients' risk of bladder cancer, according to a new study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found that patients taking thiazolidinedione (TZDs) drugs, which account for up to 20 percent of the drugs prescribed to diabetics in the United States, are two to three times more likely to develop bladder cancer than those who took a sulfonylurea drug, another common class of medications for diabetes.

Don't tell the screenwriters of "Dallas" but a problem may be creeping up that impacts that new Ewing family business.

In a new study, UT Dallas researchers outline how they used fluorescent molecules to "tag" DNA and monitor a process called DNA looping, a natural biological mechanism involved in rearranging genetic material in some types of cells.

The UT Dallas "tag and track" method not only sheds light on how DNA loops form, but also might be adapted to screen drugs for effectiveness against certain viruses that shuffle genetic material, such as HIV.

Using state-of-the-art technology scientists at The University of Nottingham have discovered a new class of polymers that are resistant to bacterial attachment. These new materials could lead to a significant reduction in hospital infections and medical device failures.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Many studies have found that high levels of hormones that are associated with stress are a sign of poor fitness and reduced chance of survival – but recent research on young songbirds found that some elevated hormones can be a good thing, often the difference between life and death.

The new research concluded that elevated levels of glucocorticoid hormones, which are part of the natural response to stress, were related to the movement, feeding, and anti-predator behaviors of juvenile birds.

Researchers for the first time have shown that members of a family of enzymes known as cathepsins – which are implicated in many disease processes – may attack one another instead of the bodily proteins they normally degrade. Dubbed "cathepsin cannibalism," the phenomenon may help explain problems with drugs that have been developed to inhibit the effects of these powerful proteases.