Body

SALT LAKE CITY – University of Utah School of Medicine researchers have found compelling evidence that Parkinson's disease is associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer and melanoma, and that this increased cancer risk also extends to close and distant relatives of individuals with Parkinson's disease. Although a link between Parkinson's disease and melanoma has been suspected before, this is the first time that an increased risk of prostate cancer has been reported in Parkinson's disease.

Frequent reports of accelerating species losses invariably raise questions about why such losses matter and why we should work to conserve biodiversity.

Biologists have traditionally responded to such questions by citing societal benefits that are often presumed to be offered by biodiversity--benefits like controlling pests and diseases, promoting the productivity of fisheries, and helping to purify air and water, among many others. Nevertheless, many of these presumed benefits are have yet to be supported by rigorous scientific data.

DURHAM, N.C. – A newly discovered hybrid gene appears to play a direct role in some stomach cancers, according to an international team of scientists led by researchers at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore.

The hybrid gene is a fusion of two separate genes, and is one of the first described in gastric cancer, which is the most lethal malignancy worldwide after lung cancer. The disease kills an estimated 740,000 people a year, including nearly 11,000 annually in the United States.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Public relations professionals constantly look for ways to most effectively promote their messages to the media. Sun-A Park, a researcher at the University of Missouri School of Journalism surveyed more than 300 health journalists and found that those who cover strokes and stroke prevention tend to hold negative views of corporate pharmacy media relations, while those who regularly read medical journals tend to cover more stories based on corporate press releases.

A groundbreaking clinical study of a new method for preventing premature birth in millions of women each year, published in the medical journal Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology, shows that the rate of early preterm delivery in women (< 33 weeks) can be reduced by 45 percent – simply by treating pregnant women at risk with a low-cost gel of natural progesterone during the midtrimester of pregnancy until term.

Ghosh and colleagues found that the density of the M1-fibrinogen structure was a critical characteristic. Looser structures or separate fibers formed by altered versions of M1 failed to trigger a pathological response.

"This research provides the first snapshot of the interaction between this key bacterial virulence factor and its human target at the atomic level," said Victor Nizet, M.D., professor of pediatrics and pharmacy and a co-author of the report.

April 6, 2011 – Developmental processes are increasingly well-characterized at the molecular and cell biological levels, but how more complex tissues and organs involving the coordinated action of multiple cell types in three dimensions is achieved remains something of a black box. One question of particular interest and importance is whether signaling interactions between neighboring tissues are essential to guiding organogenesis, or whether these can arise autonomously from developmental routines inherent to a given primordial tissue.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Biologically diverse streams are better at cleaning up pollutants than less rich waterways, and a University of Michigan ecologist says he has uncovered the long-sought mechanism that explains why this is so.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- MIT cancer biologists have identified a genetic change that makes lung tumors more likely to spread to other parts of the body. The findings, to be published in the April 6 online issue of Nature, offers new insight into how lung cancers metastasize and could help identify drug targets to combat metastatic tumors, which account for 90 percent of cancer deaths.

A new pathway has been discovered that links a common dietary lipid and intestinal microflora with an increased risk of heart disease, according to a Cleveland Clinic study published in the latest issue of Nature.

CHICAGO --- In a large multi-center clinical trial, a new PSA test to screen for prostate cancer more accurately identified men with prostate cancer -- particularly the aggressive form of the disease -- and substantially reduced false positives compared to the twocurrently available commercial PSA tests, according to newly published research from Northwestern Medicine.

Troy, N.Y. – Proteins are critically important to life and the human body. They are also among the most complex molecules in nature, and there is much we still don't know or understand about them.

One key challenge is the stability of enzymes, a particular type of protein that speeds up, or catalyzes, chemical reactions. Taken out of their natural environment in the cell or body, enzymes can quickly lose their shape and denature. Everyday examples of enzymes denaturing include milk going sour, or eggs turning solid when boiled.

College Park, Md. (April 6, 2011) -- Most people experience X-ray computed tomography (CT) scanners when they are evaluated for a suspected tumor or blood clot. But in the lab of Dr. Quin Liu, PhD., in Wuhan China, rice plants were the patients in a novel use of CT scanners as part of an agriculture study to increase rice yield.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Like any other newborn, the neonatal horse can be a challenging patient. Its immune system is still under construction, its blood chemistry can vary wildly, and – like most infants – it wants to stay close to mom.

These factors are magnified in the critically ill foal, said Pamela Wilkins, a professor of equine internal medicine and emergency/critical care at the University of Illinois and the author of a new paper on equine neonatal intensive care.

Researchers at North Carolina State University are narrowing the search for genes involved in non-Hodgkin lymphoma – by turning dogs into humans.