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Medical Systems Virology group at the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM) at the University of Helsinki, together with its national and international collaborators, developed a new cell screening method that can be used to identify potential anti-influenza drugs. The researchers were able to identify two novel compounds with anti-influenza activity, obatoclax and gemcitabine and prove the efficacy of a previously known drug saliphenylhalamide.

The study was recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and is now available online.

Like all sources of information, ">DNA sequences come in various degrees of quality and reliability. To identify, proof, and discard compromised molecular data has thus become a critical component of the scientific endeavor - one that everyone generating sequence data is assumed to carry out before using the sequences for research purposes.

UCLA stem cell scientists have shown that two common tumor suppressor genes, TSC and PTEN, are vital to regulating the stem cell-like precursor cells that create the blood supply in Drosophila, the common fruit fly.

The researchers examined a signaling pathway called TOR that the cells use to gauge nutrition levels and stress, said study senior author Dr. Julian A. Martinez-Agosto, an assistant professor of human genetics and pediatrics and a researcher with the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA.

Higher average temperatures and increasing salt concentrations are stress factors that many ecosystems face today in the wake of climate change. However, do all ecosystems react to stress in the same way and what impact does stress have on ecosystem services, such as biomass production? Botanists and ecologists from the universities of Zurich and Göttingen demonstrate that a high level of biodiversity aids stress resistance.

Higher number of species leads to greater stress resistance

Research from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden shows that sorafenib, a drug used for advanced cancer of the kidneys and liver, could also be effective against multiple myeloma. The disease is one of the more common forms of blood cancer and is generally incurable.

New Rochelle, NY, September 5, 2012—According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1 in 88 children in the U.S. has autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a broad group of neurodevelopmental disorders.

Climate change, pollution, the extraction of water for irrigation and overfishing all threaten the survival of the common trout. This fish is very sensitive to changes in its environment and, according to the Spanish study, its habitat will have reduced by half by the year 2040 and will have completely disappeared from Iberian rivers by 2100, so its population will become extinct.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Rheumatoid arthritis alone is painful and disabling, but it also puts patients at higher risk of death. The greater susceptibility to infections that accompanies the autoimmune disorder is one reason. Assessing the danger of infection a particular patient faces so it can be addressed can prove challenging for physicians. A Mayo Clinic study finds that a risk score can be developed to predict a patient's chances of having serious infections.

Borrowing a technology used to improve the effectiveness of drugs, scientists are reporting discovery of a new explosive more powerful than the current state-of-the-art explosive used by the military, and just as safe for personnel to handle. Their report appears in ACS' journal Crystal Growth & Design.

New Rochelle, NY, September 5, 2012—A group of experts has developed consensus recommendations for future research directions to determine why nearly two-thirds of Americans with Alzheimer's disease (AD) are women. The recommendations are published in a Roundtable discussion in Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Women's Health website at http://www.liebertpub.com/jwh.

Children exposed in the womb to the widely used pesticide additive piperonyl butoxide (PBO) have heightened risk of noninfectious cough at ages 5 and 6, according to researchers at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH) at the Mailman School of Public Health and of Columbia University Medical Center.

Addiction researchers have known for many years that smokers are less likely than non-smokers to look to the future in planning their lives. New research has now shown that among smokers, those who have more of a future orientation are more likely to stop smoking.

Drs. Heather Brown and Jean Adams of Newcastle University (UK) tapped into eight years of data from a large Australian database to make this discovery.

People can be obese but metabolically healthy and fit, with no greater risk of developing or dying from cardiovascular disease or cancer than normal weight people, according to the largest study ever to have investigated this, which is published online today (Wednesday) in the European Heart Journal [1].

The rate of pregnancy-associated cancer is increasing and is only partially explained by the rise in older mothers suggests new research published today (5 September) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

A large Australian study looked at 781,907 women who gave birth in New South Wales (NSW) between 1994 and 2008 which corresponds to 1,309,501 maternities. Women with pregnancy-associated cancer, where the initial diagnosis of cancer is made during pregnancy or within 12 months of delivery, are compared to women without cancer.