Body

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — At the ends of chromosome are special pieces of DNA called telomeres. Think of it as the little tip that caps off a shoelace. The telomeres send signals to the cells to let them know it's the end point, not a break that should be repaired.

Over time, as cells reproduce, the telomeres become shorter and eventually no longer do their job. The cells then have a higher risk of mutating into cancer.

The researchers found inherent size differences between the mosquito species. The treehole mosquito is larger than the Asian tiger mosquito, which makes it less vulnerable to predation from the small but voracious predatory midge. Previous studies have found that the native mosquito larvae also adopt less "risky" behaviors than the invasive mosquito larvae, making them less susceptible to being eaten.

(PHILADELPHIA) A protein related to aggressive cancers can actually improve the efficacy of gemcitabine at treating pancreatic cancer, according to a Priority Report in Cancer Research, published by researchers at Thomas Jefferson University.

Philadelphia, PA, 4 June 2009 –Preventing vascular congestion is an important mediator in heart failure, reports a study in the June issue of the Journal of Cardiac Failure (http://www.onlinejcf.com/), published by Elsevier.

Latent HIV genes can be 'smoked out' of human cells. The so-called 'shock and kill' technique, described in a preclinical study in BioMed Central's open access journal Retrovirology, might represent a new milestone along the way to the discovery of a cure for HIV/AIDS.

MRSA is a major problem in nursing homes with one in four residents carrying the bacteria, a study by Queen's University Belfast and Antrim Area Hospital has found.

Its authors say that the findings, which have been published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, highlight the need for infection control strategies to be given a higher priority in nursing homes.

Your immune system plays an important function in your health—it protects you against viruses, bacteria, and other toxins that can cause disease. In autoinflammatory diseases, however, the immune system goes awry, causing unprovoked and dangerous inflammation. Now, researchers from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), part of the National Institutes of Health, and other institutions have discovered a new autoinflammatory syndrome, a rare genetic condition that affects children around the time of birth.

The discovery that adult skin cells can be 'reprogrammed' to behave like stemcells has been a major scientific boon, providing a way to tap the potential of embryonic stem cells without the associated ethical quandaries. Now, in a study appearing online in JBC, researchers have created a line of such reprogrammed stem cells from adult pigs. As pigs are large animals with a physiology very similar to humans, this work provides a valuable model to study the therapeutic potential of this new "induced pluripotent stem cell" (iPS) technology.

CINCINNATI—Researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have discovered a protein in the lungs that can help in determining progression of the rare lung disease Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF).

Researchers say the protein—Serum surfactant protein A—is superior to other IPF predictors and could lead to better decisions about treatment and timing of lung transplantation.

The study, led by Brent Kinder, MD, is published in the June 4 edition of the journal Chest.

A promising antimicrobial agent already known to kill bacteria can also kill viruses and stimulate the innate immune system, according to researchers at National Jewish Health. In a paper appearing online June 4 in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, Michael Howell, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, and his colleagues demonstrated that the synthetic compound CSA-13 can kill vaccinia virus in cell cultures and in mice. Additionally, they showed that CSA-13 stimulates cells to produce their own antimicrobial proteins.

Montreal, June 3rd 2009 - Obesity is now acknowledged as a chronic disease with a number of related complications, and its prevalence has reached alarming epidemic proportions. While bariatric surgery is effective at treating the disease, access to this procedure is still too limited in Canada. The latest article published by Dr. Nicolas Christou, of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), in the June issue of the Canadian Journal of Surgery assesses the waiting times for this procedure.

BOSTON, Mass. (June 3, 2009)—When you were a kid your mom poured it on your scraped finger to stave off infection. When you got older you might have even used it to bleach your hair. Now there's another possible function for this over-the-counter colorless liquid: your body might be using hydrogen peroxide as an envoy that marshals troops of healing cells to wounded tissue.

p>Researchers at McGill University and the University of Pennsylvania have discovered that commonly used anti-diabetic drug metformin can boost the immune system and increase the potency of vaccines and cancer treatments. Their findings will be published June 3 in the journal Nature.

Researchers at the University of Delaware have discovered a new reason why the tall, tasseled reed Phragmites australis is one of the most invasive plants in the United States.

The UD research team found that Phragmites delivers a one-two chemical knock-out punch to snuff out its victims, and the poison becomes even more toxic in the presence of the sun's ultraviolet rays.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---In the quest for new approaches to treating and preventing disease, one appealing route involves turning genes on or off at will, directly intervening in ailments such as cancer and diabetes, which result when genes fail to turn on and off as they should.