Body

Researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) have identified a key mechanism that causes chromosomes within blood cells to break—an occurrence that marks the first step in the development of human lymphoma.

The study provides researchers with the clearest insight yet into why these breakages—called chromosomal translocations—occur at a specific points in the chromosome, says principal investigator Michael R. Lieber, M.D., Ph.D., Rita and Edward Polusky Professor in Basic Cancer Research at the Keck School of Medicine.

The world is a perilous place for the endangered manatee. While the mammals are at risk from natural threats, human activity also poses a great danger to manatee numbers. Debborah Colbert, from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, explains that many manatees die and are seriously injured in collisions with boats every year. However, little is known about how manatees perceive their environment. Whether they can localize sounds, and specifically whether they can tell which direction a boat is approaching from, are crucial factors in the development of manatee protection programmes.

MADISON — The zebra mussels that have wreaked ecological havoc on the Great Lakes are harder to find these days — not because they are dying off, but because they are being replaced by a cousin, the quagga mussel. But zebra mussels still dominate in fast-moving streams and rivers.

Research conducted by Suzanne Peyer, a doctoral candidate in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Zoology, shows that physiological differences between the two species might determine which mollusk dominates in either calm or fast-moving waters.

New Orleans, LA – Research led by Ashok Aiyar, PhD, Associate Professor of Microbiology at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, showing that a single gene can control growth in cancers related to the Epstein-Barr virus and that existing therapeutics can inactivate it, will be published in the June 12, 2009 online issue of PLoS Pathogens.

A study of patients and members of the public has shown that most lack even basic knowledge of human anatomy. The research, featured in the open access journal BMC Family Practice, found that people were generally incapable of identifying the location of major organs, even if they were currently receiving relevant treatment.

In order to increase their chances of reproductive success, male flies of the species Drosophila montana try to copulate for much longer than the females would like. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology have shown that females engaged in extended intercourse wait longer before they mate again, increasing the first fly's chances of fathering offspring.

Researchers in the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences at the University of Leicester are developing a new way to make protein based drugs with potential applications in stroke, vascular inflammation, blood vessel formation, regenerative medicine and tissue engineering.

The research carried out by Shikha Sharma in Dr Nick Brindle's group in Department of Cardiovascular Sciences aims to allow researchers to rapidly make 'designer proteins' that can bind to disease causing molecules in the body.

It may not be the Yeti, but in a remote region of the Russian mountains a previously unknown and entirely unique form of plant root has been discovered. Lead Scientist Professor Hans Cornelissen and his Russian-Dutch team describe this finding today in Ecology Letters.

The root belongs to the small alpine plant Corydalis conorhiza and unlike normal roots, which grow into soil, they extend upward through layers of snow. Given this novel behaviour, the scientists have termed them 'snow roots'.

University of Florida researchers have come up with a new gene therapy method to disrupt cancer growth by using a synthetic protein to induce blood clotting that cuts off a tumor's blood and nutrient supply.

In mice implanted with human colorectal cancer cells, tumor volume decreased 53 percent and cancer cell growth slowed by 49 percent in those treated with a gene that encodes for the artificial protein, compared with those that were untreated.

La Jolla, CA, June 11, 2009 –A team of Scripps Research scientists has created a new analog to DNA that assembles and disassembles itself without the need for enzymes. Because the new system comprises components that might reasonably be expected in a primordial world, the new chemical system could answer questions about how life could emerge.

• Resveratrol shows therapeutic potential for cancer chemoprevention as well as cardioprotection.
• Resveratrol may aid in the prevention of age-related disorders, such as neurodegenerative diseases, inflammation, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
• Low doses of resveratrol improve cell survival as a component of cardio- and neuro-protection, while high doses increase cell death.

PHILADELPHIA – In a study comparing two strains of mice, one susceptible to developing cancer and the other not, researchers found that a high-fat diet predisposed the cancer-susceptible strain to liver cancer, and that by switching to a low-fat diet early in the experiment, the same high-risk mice avoided the malignancy. The switched mice were lean rather than obese and had healthy livers at the end of the study.

PHILADELPHIA – Jumping genes do most of their jumping, not during the development of sperm and egg cells, but during the development of the embryo itself. The research, published this month in Genes and Development, "challenges standard assumptions on the timing of when mobile DNA, so-called jumping genes, insert into the human genome," says senior author Haig H. Kazazian Jr., MD, Seymour Gray Professor of Molecular Medicine in Genetics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

New Brunswick, N.J. – "Taking out the trash" takes on a whole new meaning, as investigators at The Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ) and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, have discovered that a waste disposal protein is the key to cancer tumor suppression in a process known as autophagy. CINJ is a Center of Excellence of UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

Clearing the Amazon rainforest increases Brazilian communities' wealth and quality of life, but these improvements are short-lived, according to new research published today (12 June) in Science. The study, by an international team including researchers at the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London, shows that levels of development revert back to well below national average levels when the loggers and land clearers move on.