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"The past decade has witnessed growing interest in genetic predisposition to common diseases, and along with rapid advancements in high-throughput genotyping technology, has resulted in a tremendous amount of published epidemiological evidence on gene-disease associations," says a team of researchers in this week's PLoS Medicine.

Finding a way to bypass the molecular events involved in autoimmunity – where the body's immune system mounts a self-directed attack – could lead to new treatments for autoimmune disorders and chronic infections. A study published in this week's issue of PLoS Biology describes genetic evidence that two distinct molecular pathways control the formation of regulatory T cells (Treg), a cell type vitally important in limiting undesirable immune responses.

CINCINNATI – Bypassing a molecular breakdown that helps trigger autoimmunity could lead to new treatments for autoimmune disorders and chronic infections that sicken or kill thousands of children annually, according to researchers.

A study in the March 2 PLoS Biology has discovered genetic evidence that two distinct molecular pathways control the formation of regulatory T cells (Treg), a vitally important cell type in limiting undesirable immune responses. Autoimmunity is where the immune system mounts a self attack on the body, destroying vital tissues and organs.

A female moth selects a mate based on the scent of his pheromones. An analysis of the pheromones used by the European Corn Borer (ECB, Ostrinia nubilalis), featured in the open access journal BMC Biology, shows that females can discern a male's ancestry, age and possibly reproductive fitness from the chemical cocktail he exudes.

Young children who spend more than two hours glued to the TV every day double their subsequent risk of developing asthma, indicates research published ahead of print in Thorax.

The findings are based on more than 3,000 children whose respiratory health was tracked from birth to 11.5 years of age. The children were all participants in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), which has been following the long term health of 14,000 children and their parents.

A new testosterone patch, designed to pep up a woman's flagging sex drive after womb and ovary removal, may not work, and its long term safety is not proven, says Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin (DTB).

Intrinsa was recently licensed in the UK for the treatment of women, who have gone through the menopause as a result of womb and ovary removal, and who are subsequently experiencing a drop in sex drive.

The condition is referred to as hypoactive sexual desire disorder or HSDD for short.

OAKLAND, Calif., March 2, 2009 – A new study in the online issue of Annals of Internal Medicine has found that cholesterol medications can work well among certain HIV patients at risk for cardiovascular disease.

Though HIV patients are at higher risk for cardiovascular disease in part due to lipid abnormalities that can occur with the use of certain antiretroviral therapies, researchers now have evidence that cholesterol medications work very well in this population.

Stanford, CA— The African savanna is world famous for its wildlife, especially the iconic large herbivores such as elephants, zebras, and giraffes. But managing these ecosystems and balancing the interests of the large charismatic mammals with those of other species has been a perpetual challenge for park and game mangers. Now a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports the successful test of new remote-sensing technology to monitor the impact of management decisions on the savannah ecosystem.

Soo Young Lee and colleagues, at Ewha Womans University, Republic of Korea, have developed a cell-permeable inhibitor of the mouse protein RANK (which they termed RRI) that is likely to aid in the development of selective drugs to treat diseases that involve substantial bone loss, for example, osteoporosis, periodontitis, and arthritis.

By altering just one gene in HIV-1, scientists have succeeded in infecting pig-tailed macaque monkeys with a human version of the virus that has until now been impossible to study directly in animals. The new strain of HIV has already been used to demonstrate one method for preventing infection and, with a little tweaking, could be a valuable model for vetting vaccine candidates.

The experiments, thus far performed only in mice, appear to overcome a major drawback of vaccinations – the lag time of days, or even weeks, that it normally takes for immunity to build against a pathogen. This new method of vaccination could potentially be used to provide instantaneous protection against diseases caused by viruses and bacteria, cancers, and even virulent toxins.

The work is being published in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) the week of March 2, 2009.

Providing very young children with swimming lessons appears to have a protective effect against drowning and does not increase children's risk of drowning, reported researchers at the National Institutes of Health.

The researchers state that the findings should ease concerns among health professionals that giving swimming lessons to children from ages 1 to 4 years might indirectly increase drowning risk by making parents and caregivers less vigilant when children are near bodies of water.

Children ages 1 to 4 appear to have a lower risk of drowning if they have taken formal swimming lessons, according to a report in the March issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Between 11 percent and 20 percent of U.S. teens are estimated to own T-shirts or other merchandise featuring an alcohol brand, and those who do appear more likely to transition through the stages of drinking from susceptibility to beginning drinking to binge drinking, according to a report in the March issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

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