Body

Researchers have found a way in mice to convert another type of pancreas cell into the critical insulin-producing beta cells that are lost in those with type I diabetes. The secret ingredient is a single transcription factor, according to the report in the August 7th issue of Cell, a Cell Press journal.

When the gene called Pax4 is forced on in pancreatic alpha cells, the cells change their identity to become beta cells, the researchers found. The body in turn senses a loss of alpha cells, replaces them with new alpha cells and then converts those too into beta cells.

PHILADELPHIA – (August 6, 2009) – A team of researchers from The Wistar Institute has identified a protein that could serve as a target for reprogramming immune system cells exhausted by exposure to chronic viral infection into more effective "soldiers" against certain viruses like HIV, hepatitis C, and hepatitis B, as well as some cancers, such as melanoma.

Sprouting. Branching. Pruning. Neuroscientists have borrowed heavily from botanists to describe the way that neurons grow, but analogies between the growth of neurons and plants may be more than superficial. A new study from the National Institutes of Health and Harvard Medical School suggests that neurons and plant root cells may grow using a similar mechanism.

STANFORD, Calif. — Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered, for the first time, a common molecular pathway that is used by both normal stem cells and cancer stem cells when they reproduce themselves.

Yale University researchers have discovered how a protein within most cell membranes helps maintain normal cell size, a breakthrough in basic biology that has implications for a variety of diseases such as sickle cell anemia and disorders of the nervous system.

With summer in full swing, many plants are at their peak bloom and climbing plants, like clematis, morning glories, and sweet peas, are especially remarkable. Not only are these plants beautiful, but their ability to climb walls and trellises is an impressive feat of biological engineering that has taken millions of years to accomplish.

Mary had a little lamb, but only once a year. However, Cornell Sheep Program researchers have discovered an unusual form of a gene that prompts ewes to breed out of season as well as conceive at younger ages and more frequently.

They conducted a simple genetic test to identify the presence of the unusual form of the gene, the so-called M allele that other researchers had suspected might be correlated with out-of-season fertility, in their test flock and then validated the gene's relationship with aseasonal breeding by observing that trait in the flock.

Two titans fighting a bloody battle – that often turns fatal for both of them. This is how big predatory dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus are often depicted while hunting down their supposed prey: even larger herbivorous dinosaurs. The fossils, though, do not account for that kind of hunting behavior but indicate that theropods, the large predatory dinosaurs, were frying much smaller fish. Dr. Oliver Rauhut, paleontologist at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich, and his collegue Dr. David Hone surmise that giant carnivores like Tyrannosaurus preyed mainly on juvenile dinosaurs.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — For cancer drug developers, finding an agent that kills tumor cells is only part of the equation. The drug must also spare healthy cells, and – ideally – its effects will be reversible, to cut short any potentially dangerous side effects.

University of Illinois researchers report that they have assembled a new cancer drug delivery system that, in cell culture, achieves all of the above. The findings appear this month in the journal Angewandte Chemie.

A research article to be published on August 7, 2009 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this question. In the present study, 101 consecutive patients with bilateral intrahepatic stones who underwent bilateral liver resection in the past 10 years were reviewed retrospectively.

A world-first study involving Monash University and the Cabrini Research Institute in Melbourne has revealed the injection of bone cement into broken vertebrae is not an effective treatment for patients suffering painful osteoporotic fractures.

The treatment, known as percutaneous vertebroplasty, is regularly recommended by doctors and specialists around the world. About 600 patients across Australia undergo the procedure every year.

The study results were published today in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

The normal ageing process has long been linked to problems with cell respiration, the process through which the cells extract energy from nutrients. Researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have now shown how certain proteins that are synthesised in the cellular mitochondria – popularly known as the cells' power plants – become unstable and disintegrate, which in turn can impair cell respiration and cause premature ageing.

It seems like common sense that an information leaflet for vision loss would have large print and appropriate contrast, but that's not the case a new study done at the University of Alberta has found.

PHILADELPHIA – Results of a new study confirm trends that different Hispanic population groups have higher incidence rates of certain cancers and worse cancer outcomes if they live in the United States, than they do if they live in their homelands.

"Hispanics are not all the same with regard to their cancer experience," said Paulo S. Pinheiro, M.D., Ph.D., M.Sc., researcher in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

PHILADELPHIA – Many women at high risk for breast or ovarian cancer are choosing to undergo surgery as a precautionary measure to decrease their cancer risk, according to a report in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.