Body

Researchers have discovered a way of reducing the fertility of malaria-carrying mosquitoes, potentially providing a new tactic to combat the disease.

Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes are the main transmitters of malaria, which affects around 200 million people every year. The females mate only once during their lives. They store the sperm from this single mating in an organ called the spermatheca, from which they repeatedly take sperm over the course of their lifetime to fertilise the eggs that they lay..

Melbourne researchers have solved a puzzle as to how an essential blood-making hormone stimulates production of the blood clotting cells known as platelets.

Platelets are essential for stopping bleeding and are produced by small fragments breaking off their 'parent' cells, called megakaryocytes.

From time to time, living cells will accidently make an extra copy of a gene during the normal replication process. Throughout the history of life, evolution has molded some of these seemingly superfluous genes into a source of genetic novelty, adaptation and diversity. A new study shows one way that some duplicate genes could have long-ago escaped elimination from the genome, leading to the genetic innovation seen in modern life.

Resistance to an entire class of antibiotics – aminoglycosides -- has the potential to spread to many types of bacteria, according to new biochemistry research.

A mobile gene called NpmA was discovered in E. coli bacteria isolated from a Japanese patient several years ago. Global spread of NpmA and related antibiotic resistance enzymes could disable an entire class of tools doctors use to fight serious or life-threatening infections.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study shows that a gene discovered 30 years ago and now known to play a fundamental role in cancer development produces five different gene variants (called isoforms), rather than just the one original form, as thought.

The study of the NRAS gene by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James) identified four previously unknown variants that the NRAS gene produces.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Based on a fundamental chemical discovery by scientists at Oregon State University, it appears that trees may soon play a major role in making high-tech energy storage devices.

OSU chemists have found that cellulose – the most abundant organic polymer on Earth and a key component of trees – can be heated in a furnace in the presence of ammonia, and turned into the building blocks for supercapacitors.

Dramatic distribution losses and a few major distribution gains are forecasted for southwestern bird and reptile species as the climate changes, according to just-published research by scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of New Mexico, and Northern Arizona University.

TORONTO, April 7, 2014—Eating one serving a day of beans, peas, chickpeas or lentils can significantly reduce "bad cholesterol" and therefore the risk of cardiovascular disease, a new study has found.

However, most people in North America would have to more than double their consumption of these foods known as pulses to reach that target, said the researchers at St. Michael's Hospital.

The study, led by Dr. John Sievenpiper of the hospital's Clinical Nutrition and Risk Factor Modification Centre, was published today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A research team led by a cell biologist at the University of California, Riverside has generated a 3D model of the human malaria parasite genome at three different stages in the parasite's life cycle — the first time such 3D architecture has been generated during the progression of the life cycle of a parasite.

New Rochelle, NY, April 7, 2014—Antipsychotic medications are often used for unlabeled indications, such as treatment of children and adolescents with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

A team of French and Brazilian researchers warn that chikungunya virus is poised to invade, and become epidemic in the Americas according to research published ahead of print in the Journal of Virology.

The antibody-drug conjugate trastuzumab emtansine (trade name: Kadcyla) has been approved since November 2013 for the treatment of patients with unresectable, locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer that is HER2-positive, i.e. that overexpresses the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2. Patients must have already received trastuzumab or a taxane – alone or in combination. They should also have already received treatment for the locally advanced or metastatic disease or have developed disease recurrence during or within six months of completing adjuvant therapy.

New Rochelle, NY, April 7, 2014—Elevated pressure in the eye is the most common risk factor for glaucoma, an optic neuropathy that can cause blindness and affects more than 67 million people worldwide. Elevated eye pressure in glaucoma develops due to abnormal functioning of the trabecular meshwork (TM) causing intraocular fluid to back up.

Researchers at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth have found that the body's immune system response was enhanced when they disrupted VISTA, a protein that prevents the immune system from overreacting. Understanding how checkpoint regulators like VISTA function is important to cancer researchers, who hope to use the immune system to attack tumors.

DETROIT – An innovative kidney transplant technique developed by Henry Ford Hospital is credited as the first in the world to use a new set of patient safety standards coordinated by the University of Oxford in England.

The standards are being assembled and offered as a framework for developing, performing and reporting surgical innovations that, unlike new medical treatments, are not under strict regulations and control.