Body

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Slimy layers of bacterial growth, known as biofilms, pose a significant hazard in industrial and medical settings. Once established, biofilms are very difficult to remove, and a great deal of research has gone into figuring out how to prevent and eradicate them.

Results from a recent MIT study suggest a possible new source of protection against biofilm formation: polymers found in mucus. The MIT biological engineers found that these polymers, known as mucins, can trap bacteria and prevent them from clumping together on a surface, rendering them harmless.

New York, NY (Nov. 8, 2012) – A study by researchers at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC) at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, recently e-published ahead of print by the Journal of Clinical Oncology, suggests that women who have surgery for ovarian cancer at high-volume hospitals have superior outcomes than similar patients at low-volume hospitals.

CENTER CITY, Minn. (November 8, 2012) – Young adults undergoing addiction treatment benefit from regular participation in Twelve Step-based self-help groups after discharge, according to a naturalistic study published electronically and in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence. The study was conducted collaboratively by the Center for Addiction Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and the Butler Center for Research at Hazelden.

Cigarette Smoke Boosts Virulence in Staphylococcus aureus

Exposure to cigarette smoke has long been associated with increased frequency of respiratory infections—which are harder to treat in smoke-exposed people than in those who lack such exposures. Now Ritwij Kulkarni of Columbia University, New York, NY, and colleagues show that cigarette smoke actually boosts virulence of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. Their study appears in the November 2012 issue of the journal Infection and Immunity.

Corals under attack by toxic seaweed do what anyone might do when threatened – they call for help. A study reported this week in the journal Science shows that threatened corals send signals to fish "bodyguards" that quickly respond to trim back the noxious alga – which can kill the coral if not promptly removed.

STANFORD, Calif. — Scientists at Stanford University have developed an intracellular remote control: a simple way to activate and track proteins, the busiest of cellular machines, using beams of light.

A mother's willingness to sacrifice her own health and safety for the sake of her children is a common narrative across cultures – and by no means unique to humans alone. Female polar bears starve, dolphin mothers stop sleeping and some spider moms give themselves as lunch for their crawly babies' first meal.

Now an unexpected discovery at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) shows that even yeast "mothers" do it, giving all to their offspring – even at the cost of their own lives.

This press release is available in Spanish and Portuguese.

Each year, huge carbon stores are lost as a result of deforestation. In South America, around four million hectares of forest are cut down every year. As a result, international climate protection programs are planning to financially compensate farmers who preserve forests or plant new trees. Demand for land is rising, however. And growing need for food and energy crops will inevitably lead to conflicts of interest over fertile land in countries such as Brazil and Ecuador.

A research team reported that next generation sequencing of the exome, the 1 to 2% of the DNA containing the genes that code for proteins, enabled the identification of the genetic causes of unexplained intellectual disability in over 50% of patients in a study conducted at Radboud University Medical Centre in Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

A team of researchers at Kaiser Permanente and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has identified a significant relationship between mortality and the length of telomeres, the stretches of DNA that protect the ends of chromosomes, according to a presentation on Nov. 8 at the American Society of Human Genetics 2012 meeting in San Francisco.

While a reduction in telomere length is regarded as a biomarker of aging, scientists have not yet determined whether it plays a direct causal role in aging-related health changes and mortality or is just a sign of aging.

Research findings confirming that de novo mutations represent a major cause of previously unexplained intellectual disability were presented on Nov. 8 at the American Society of Human Genetics 2012 meeting in San Francisco.

About 10.6% of the inherited genetic risk for developing coronary artery disease (CAD) can be explained by specific DNA variations, according to research reported today at the American Society of Human Genetics 2012 meeting.

The research, conducted by scientists in the CARDIoGRAMplusC4D consortium, pinpointed 20 previously unidentified mutations during a two-stage meta-analysis of 63,746 patients with CAD, which causes more deaths worldwide than any other disease.

(TORONTO, Canada – Nov. 8, 2012) – Canadian and Italian stem cell researchers have discovered a new "master control gene" for human blood stem cells and found that manipulating its levels could potentially create a way to expand these cells for clinical use.

AMHERST, Mass. – Recently biologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst led by Wei-lih Lee have identified a new molecular player in asymmetric cell division, a regulatory protein named She1 whose role in chromosome- and spindle positioning wasn't known before. Asymmetric cell division is important in the self-renewal of stem cells and because it ensures that daughter cells have different fates and functions.