Body

STANFORD, Calif. — More than 260,000 Americans are alive today thanks to transplant operations that have replaced their failing kidneys, hearts, lungs or livers with healthy organs donated by volunteers or accident victims.

But treatment doesn't end with surgery. Transplant recipients follow strict drug regimens designed to suppress their immune systems just enough to prevent rejection of the donated organ, but not so much as to leave them prone to infection.

Scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have discovered that two separate species of salamander differ in the way their muscles grow back in lost body parts. Their findings on the species-specific solutions, published in the scientific periodical Cell Stem Cell, demonstrate there is more than one mechanism of tissue regeneration.

WORCESTER, MA – Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute have discovered evidence that a widely used anti-fungal medicine increases susceptibility to flu infection in mice and cell cultures. Published online in Cell Reports, the study shows that Amphotericin B, commonly given to cancer and bone marrow transplant patients to fight invasive fungal infections, neutralizes an important anti-viral protein, making it easier for viruses to infect cells.

NEW YORK, NY (November 21, 2013) –A single overactive enzyme worsens the two core defects of diabetes—impaired insulin sensitivity and overproduction of glucose—suggesting that a drug targeting the enzyme could help correct both at once, according to mouse studies done by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center. The findings were published today in the online edition of Cell Metabolism.

Researchers have identified a genomic variant strongly associated with sensitivity to the sun, brown hair, blue eyes – and freckles. In the study of Icelanders the researchers uncovered an intricate pathway involving the interspersed DNA sequence, or non-coding region, of a gene that is among a few dozen that are associated with human pigmentation traits. The study by an international team including researchers from the National Institutes of Health was reported in the Nov. 21, 2013, online edition of the journal Cell.

PHILADELPHIA - Drugs that inhibit the activity of enzymes called histone deacetylases (HDACs) are being widely developed for treating cancer and other diseases, with two already on the market. Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, show that a major HDAC still functions in mice even when its enzyme activity is abolished, suggesting that the beneficial effects of HDAC inhibitors may not actually be through inhibiting HDAC activity, and thus warranting the reassessment of the molecular targets of this class of drugs.

Using a new method to catch elusive "jumping genes" in the act, researchers have found two human proteins that are used by one type of DNA to replicate itself and move from place to place. The discovery, described in the Nov. 21 issue of Cell, breaks new ground, they say, in understanding the arms race between a jumping gene driven to colonize new areas of the human genome and cells working to limit the risk posed by such volatile bits of DNA.

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have unveiled a profound biological process that explains how DNA can be damaged during genome replication. In addition, the scientists developed a new analytical tool to measure the cell's response to chemotherapy, which could have an important impact on future cancer therapy. The results are now published in the scientific journal Cell.

They are among the animal kingdom's most industrious workers … now a study reveals why colonies of ants and bees depend on females for their success.

Altruistic workers in social insect colonies – such as ants, bees and wasps – are more likely to be female, because their maternal instincts make them better at caring for the queen's offspring.

Health care costs continue to go up, and physicians control more than 80 percent of those costs. Could providing physicians with real-time information about the cost of what they order help to restrain excessive testing? This is the question addressed in an article¹ in the Journal of General Internal Medicine², published by Springer.

NEW YORK (November 20, 2013) – Having high knowledge about HIV and engaging in risky sexual activity do not make high-school-aged teens more likely to get tested for HIV. Those are the findings of a new study by researchers at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. The study of nearly 1,000 Bronx, NY teens found those most likely to be tested for HIV had strong partner communication about HIV and were in committed relationships.

Jordi Casanova, head of the "Morphogenesis in Drosophila" lab at IRB Barcelona and CSIC research professor, and Gaëlle Lebreton, postdoctoral fellow in the same group, have published a study performed using Drosophila melanogaster in the Journal of Cell Science. This work reveals that in a multiple movement, a single cell can act as the leader and can drag the rest with it.

Over the past decade, advances in genetic mapping tools have provided great insight into how DNA influences cell behavior. But genetics is only half the equation; much of cells' behavior is the result of post-transcriptional processes, events that occur after DNA is transcribed, carried out by complex enzyme interactions within the cell. The roles that enzymes play in regulating cell behavior have been incompletely understood, largely because researchers have lacked the proper tools to measure the many simultaneous reactions in a cell.

Case Western Reserve University researchers were surprised to learn that people younger than 50 years old with HIV feel more isolated and stressed than older people with the disease. They expected their study to reveal just the opposite.

"The younger, newly diagnosed individual may not know anyone in their peer group with a chronic illness, much less HIV," said Allison Webel, PhD, RN, assistant professor at Case Western Reserve's Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing.

Almost two-thirds of women who attempt a natural delivery after having a caesarean section for their first birth are successful, according to a new study published today (20 November) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

The study, conducted by the Office for Research and Clinical Audit (ORCA) at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, aimed to investigate the factors that determine the uptake and success rate of vaginal birth after caesarean.