Body

CINCINNATI – Scientists have linked an overactive response by one of the immune system's key weapons against infection – natural killer, or NK, cells – to the onset of biliary atresia in infants, a disease where blocked bile ducts can cause severe liver damage and death.

NEW YORK (July 22, 2009) -- Over the last four years, heart specialists at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center have implanted an innovative aortic heart valve replacement using a catheter-based approach that does not require open-heart surgery in a total of 100 patients -- the most of any U.S. medical center to date.

Open-heart surgery can require a two- to three-month recovery period, compared to only a few days for the transcatheter approach.

Scientists in India are reporting successful laboratory tests of a new and potentially safer alternative to silver-based gels applied to the skin of burn patients to treat infections. With names like silver sulfadiazine and silver nitrate, these germ-fighters save lives and speed healing. The researchers describe gel composed of silver nanoparticles — each 1/50,000th the width of a human hair — that appears more effective than these traditional gels. Their study is scheduled for the Aug. 3 issue of ACS' Molecular Pharmaceutics, a bi-monthly journal.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute have for the first time produced a malarial protein (Pfs48/45) in the proper conformation and quantity to generate a significant immune response in mice and non-human primates for use in a potential transmission-blocking vaccine. Antibodies induced by Pfs48/45 protein vaccine effectively blocked the sexual development of the malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium, as it grows within the mosquito.

Bangladeshi farmers are benefiting from research that allows farmers to harvest rice earlier, giving them more time to grow a second crop to provide desperately needed food and ease hunger during monga -- the hunger months.

Monga is a yearly famine that occurs in northwest Bangladesh from September to November after the previous season's food has run out and before the harvest of transplanted rice in December.

According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, monga affects more than 2 million households in 5 districts that depend on rice for their food.

Many animal species such as snakes, insects and fish have evolved camouflage defences to deter attack from their predators. However research published in NewPhytologist has discovered that trees in New Zealand have evolved a similar defence to protect themselves from extinct giant birds, providing the first evidence of this strategy in plant life.

A reduction of as little as five per cent in fisheries catch could result in as much as 30 per cent of the British Columbia coastal ecosystems being protected from overfishing, according to a new study from the UBC Fisheries Centre.

Although visceral hypersensitivity is considered a hallmark feature of IBS, conflicting evidence exists regarding somatic hypersensitivity in this patient population. Several investigators have found no evidence for heightened somatic pain sensitivity in IBS patients. Also, others have reported similar cold presser pain tolerance in IBS patients and controls. These conflicting findings may result from differing somatic pain testing procedures. Previous studies have explored the correlates of visceral hypersensitivity among patients with IBS.

Fecal incontinence (FI) is a normal part of aging, or the perception that no treatment is available. Doctors may fail to comprehend patient hints about diarrhea and FI or may be reluctant to ask about fecal leakage, perhaps because of their own embarrassment or the perception that FI is a trivial concern.

Proteus syndrome is a complex disorder associated with varied, disproportionate, asymmetric overgrowth of many body parts and unregulated adipose tissue. The overgrowth seen in Proteus syndrome is progressive and difficult to manage. Patients with Proteus syndrome require repeated treatment for the progressive overgrowth of tissue over a long period. Aggressive treatment may cause severe functional and cosmetic consequences, so surgical intervention is often delayed until it is absolutely necessary.

Winter chill, a vital climatic trigger for many tree crops, is likely to decrease by more than 50 percent during this century as global climate warms, making California no longer suitable for growing many fruit and nut crops, according to a team of researchers from the University of California, Davis, and the University of Washington.

In some parts of California's agriculturally rich Central Valley, winter chill has already declined by nearly 30 percent, the researchers found.

A research report published in the July 2009 issue of the journal GENETICS (http://www.genetics.org) complicates the debate over whether nature or nurture plays the most important role in complex diseases such as psychiatric disorders, heart disease, and cancer.

Discoveries by Scripps Research Institute scientists have led to a promising new drug candidate for patients with a genetic protein-misfolding disease. In results announced by the biopharmaceutical firm FoldRx Pharmaceuticals Inc. today, the new drug tafamidis significantly halts disease progression for patients with a disease called Transthyretin (TTR) amyloid polyneuropathy (ATTR-PN).

Men who exercised regularly, drank moderately, did not smoke, who were not overweight and had a diet that included cereal and fruits and vegetables had a lower lifetime risk of heart failure, according to a study in the July 22/29 issue of JAMA.