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SAN DIEGO—Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified a gene mutation that underlies the vast majority of cases of Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia, a rare form of lymphoma that has eluded all previous efforts to find a genetic cause.

Worldwide, dengue fever strikes roughly 50 million people every year and takes the lives of thousands, but specific therapies or a vaccine for this mosquito-borne illness remain unavailable. A report coming out in the online journal mBio® on December 13 describes a new discovery about how the body fights the dengue virus, a finding that could explain differences in the ability to fight off the virus and help in developing a drug to boost this response.

Single-celled bacteria communicate with each other using coded messages to coordinate attacks on their targets. Until now, the diversity of codes employed by these invading bacteria was thought to be extremely limited. However, a new report published Dec.

Scientists have discovered a new signal that helps invading bacteria communicate but also helps targeted rice plants coordinate defensive attacks on the disease-causing invaders, a finding that could lead to new methods of combatting infection not just in plants, but in humans.

Findings from the study, conducted by a team of researchers led by a University of California, Davis, scientist, will be reported in the Dec. 12 issue of the journal PLoS ONE and in the journal Discovery Medicine.

CHICAGO --- A transparent cornea is essential for vision, which is why the eye has evolved to nourish the cornea without blood vessels. But for millions of people around the world, diseases of the eye or trauma spur the growth of blood vessels and can cause blindness.

A new Northwestern Medicine study has identified a gene that plays a major role in maintaining clarity of the cornea in humans and mice -- and could possibly be used as gene therapy to treat diseases that cause blindness. The paper is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A large, retrospective study shows that children of childhood cancer survivors who received prior treatment involving radiation to testes or ovaries and/or chemotherapy with alkylating agents do not have an increased risk for birth defects compared to children of survivors who did not have such cancer treatment. The findings provide reassurance that increased risks of birth defects are unlikely for cancer survivors who are concerned about the potential effects of their treatment on their children, and can help guide family planning choices.

TORONTO, Canada—Researchers at the University of Toronto have found an explanation for how the intestinal tract influences a key component of the immune system to prevent infection, offering a potential clue to the cause of autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.

In response to a lawsuit after a college football player died from complications due to sickle cell trait (SCT) during a workout, the NCAA implemented mandatory SCT screening of all Division I student-athletes.

A new study evaluated the impact of that policy and found that testing alone will help identify more than 2,000 athletes with SCT, but warns that screening alone will not prevent death.

The eel-like body and scrawny "limbs" of the African lungfish would appear to make it an unlikely innovator for locomotion. But its improbable walking behavior, newly described by University of Chicago scientists, redraws the evolutionary route of life on Earth from water to land.

CHICAGO --- A transparent cornea is essential for vision, which is why the eye has evolved to nourish the cornea without blood vessels. But for millions of people around the world, diseases of the eye or trauma spur the growth of blood vessels and can cause blindness.

A new Northwestern Medicine study has identified a gene that plays a major role in maintaining clarity of the cornea in humans and mice -- and could possibly be used as gene therapy to treat diseases that cause blindness. The paper is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Athens, Ga.–Researchers from the University of Georgia and the Mayo Clinic in Arizona have developed a vaccine that dramatically reduces tumors in a mouse model that mimics 90 percent of human breast and pancreatic cancer cases—including those that are resistant to common treatments.

The vaccine, described this week in the early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals a promising new strategy for treating cancers that share the same distinct carbohydrate signature, including ovarian and colorectal cancers.

NEW YORK (Dec. 12, 2011) -- A 59-year-old woman from upstate New York and a 60-year-old woman from the New York metro area were the first patients in New York state and among the first in the United States to receive transplanted lungs that were assessed and reconditioned in the operating room -- a technique that has the potential to dramatically increase the availability of lungs for transplant. The experimental procedure was performed by Dr. Frank D'Ovidio at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center.

There are probably at least 500 medically useful chemicals awaiting discovery in plant species whose chemical constituents have not yet been evaluated for their potential to cure or treat disease, according to a new analysis by a New York Botanical Garden scientist who has more than 15 years of experience in collecting plants for natural-products discovery programs.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Wheat's genetic resistance to Hessian flies has been failing, but a group of Purdue University and U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists believe that other plants may soon be able to come to the rescue.

The Purdue and USDA research team developed a method to test toxins from other plants on Hessian fly larvae. The test simulates the effect of a transgenic plant without the lengthy and costly procedures necessary to actually create those plants.

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SAN DIEGO -- The most comprehensive search to date of DNA abnormalities in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) has unearthed several new altered genes that drive this common blood cancer, a finding that could potentially help doctors predict whether an individual patient's disease will progress rapidly or remain indolent for years, say scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute.