Body

A process that normally occurs in developing embryos – the changing of one basic cell type into another – has also been suspected of playing a role in cancer metastasis. Now a study from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center researchers has associated this process, called epithelial-mesenchymal transition or EMT, with disease progression and treatment response in breast cancer patients. The report also identifies underlying mechanisms that someday may become therapeutic targets.

January 31, 2013, Shenzhen, China – In a study published today in Science, researchers from University of Utah, BGI, and other institutes have completed the genome sequencing of rock pigeon, Columba livia, among the most common and varied bird species on Earth. The work reveals the evolutionary secrets of pigeons and opens a new way for researchers to study the genetic traits controlling pigeons' splendid diversity. The findings also help to fill the genetic gaps in exploiting pigeon as a model for the molecular genetic basis of avian variation.

The relationship between genetics and Parkinson's has been investigated for more than a decade, but it is only over the last few years that significant results have begun to be obtained. The first mutations related to the development of this disease were found in 2004. A team from the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country came across a mutation of the LRRK2 gene, which is particularly prevalent among the population of Gipuzkoa. It is the R1441G mutation and is known as the Basque mutation.

For social animals such as schooling fish, the loss of their numbers to human activity could eventually threaten entire populations, according to a finding that such animals rely heavily on grouping to effectively navigate their environment.

On January 30, 2013 ACS Nano published a study by Ali Khademhosseini, PhD, MASc, a researcher in the division of biomedical engineering at Brigham and Women's Hospital, detailing the creation of innovative cardiac patches that utilize nanotechnology to enhance the conductivity of materials to induce cardiac tissue formation. Creation of these ultra-thin cardiac patches put medicine a step closer to durable, high-functioning artificial tissues that could be used to repair damaged hearts and other organs.

Memphis, Tenn. – Children continue to account for a disproportionate percentage of morbidity and mortality from ATV-related accidents – up 240 percent since 1997, according to a Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics report published by pediatric orthopaedic surgeons at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital.

Researchers at the University of Florida and Oberlin College have developed a sequencing method that will allow potentially hundreds of plant chloroplast genomes to be sequenced at once, facilitating studies of molecular biology and evolution in plants.

The chloroplast is the compartment within the plant cell that is responsible for photosynthesis and hence provides all of the sugar that a plant needs to grow and survive. The chloroplast is unusual in containing its own DNA genome, separate from the larger and dominant genome that is located in every cell's nucleus.

A new study, to be published in the Feb. 7, 2013 issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, expands and deepens the biological and genetic links between cardiovascular disease and schizophrenia. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of premature death among schizophrenia patients, who die from heart and blood vessel disorders at a rate double that of persons without the mental disorder.

It was in trying to answer a question related to the functioning of our biological clock that a team lead by Ueli Schibler, a professor at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, has developed a method whose applications are proving to be countless. The researchers wanted to understand how 'timed' signals, present in the blood and controlled by our central clock, located in the brain, act on peripheral organs.

Berkeley — A new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, represents a major advance in the understanding of the molecular mechanisms behind aging while providing new hope for the development of targeted treatments for age-related degenerative diseases.

Researchers were able to turn back the molecular clock by infusing the blood stem cells of old mice with a longevity gene and rejuvenating the aged stem cells' regenerative potential. The findings will be published online Thursday, Jan. 31, in the journal Cell Reports.

Obesity and its related conditions such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke are among the most challenging of today's healthcare concerns.

Together, they constitute the biggest killer in western society. New findings, published in Cell, have identified a target that could hold the key to developing safe therapies to treat obesity and its associated conditions.

LA JOLLA, Calif., January 31, 2013 – Cancer cells need food to survive and grow. They're very good at getting it, too, even when nutrients are scarce. Many scientists have tried killing cancer cells by taking away their favorite food, a sugar called glucose. Unfortunately, this treatment approach not only fails to work, it backfires—glucose-starved tumors actually get more aggressive. In a study published January 31 in the journal Cell, researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute discovered that a protein called PKCζ is responsible for this paradox.

Melbourne scientists have discovered how female steroid hormones can make dramatic changes to the genetic material in breast cells, changes that could potentially lead to breast cancer.

Researchers from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia, have identified how pregnancy hormones send signals to critical molecules on the DNA to make changes in the epigenome. The epigenome is a series of chemical tags that modify DNA, controlling which genes are switched on and off.

Spending a lot of time watching television after breast cancer diagnosis is not linked to death in these breast cancer survivors. It appears that after accounting for self-reported physical activity levels after diagnosis, sedentary behavior was not an independent risk factor for death. These findings by Stephanie George, from the National Cancer Institute, and her colleagues, are published online in Springer's Journal of Cancer Survivorship.