Body

The 10-year anniversary of the historic Women's Health Initiative (WHI) Hormone Therapy Trial report, which radically changed the practice of women's health, will be commemorated in July 2012. In anticipation of this event, two of the world's leading experts in women's health, menopause, and hormone therapy are releasing an editorial in the journal Menopause, providing their perspective on this epic study and the lessons learned over the past 10 years.

FRESNO, Calif., May 31, 2012 – New research recently announced at the Canadian Nutrition Society annual meeting in Vancouver, B.C., suggests eating raisins as an after-school snack prevents excessive calorie intake and increases satiety – or feeling of fullness – as compared to other commonly consumed snacks.

Scientists have revealed a key cog in the biochemical machinery that allows marine algae at the base of the oceanic food chain to thrive. They have discovered a previously unknown protein in algae that grabs an essential but scarce nutrient out of seawater, vitamin B12.

Many algae, as well as land-dwelling animals, including humans, require B12, but they cannot make it and must either acquire it from the environment or eat food that contains B12. Only certain single-celled bacteria and archaea have the ability to synthesize B12, which is also known as cobalamin.

Despite past safety concerns, the antioxidant supplement beta-carotene, is safe to use during radiation therapy treatments for prostate cancer and does not increase the risk of prostate cancer death or metastases, according to a study in the May issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology•Biology•Physics, the official scientific journal of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).

Scientists at Rice University and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have successfully profiled protein pathways found to be distinctive to leukemia patients with particular variants of the disease.

Their research involved the creation of a new computational approach to identifying complex networks in protein signaling. They reported their work this month in the journal Proteomics.

The molecular structure of a protein involved in Alzheimer's disease – and the surprising discovery that it binds cholesterol – could lead to new therapeutics for the disease, Vanderbilt University investigators report in the June 1 issue of the journal Science.

UCLA biochemists have designed specialized proteins that assemble themselves to form tiny molecular cages hundreds of times smaller than a single cell. The creation of these miniature structures may be the first step toward developing new methods of drug delivery or even designing artificial vaccines.

Scientists at the University of York and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Australia have discovered a complex gene cluster responsible for the synthesis of the medicinal compound noscapine.

The 20 proteins in the Wnt family are some of the most important proteins in controlling how an organism develops and grows, but for 30 years scientists have not known what these vital proteins actually look like. The proteins have eluded standard visualization techniques, in large part because they do not dissolve well in the water-based liquids normally used for biochemical studies. But once Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator K.

African-American and Latino children whose mothers smoked during pregnancy are more likely to suffer from acute asthma symptoms in their teens than asthma sufferers whose mothers did not smoke, according to a new study led by a research team at UCSF.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute scientists have determined the three-dimensional structure of two proteins that help keep the body's clocks in sync. The proteins, CLOCK and BMAL1, bind to each other to regulate the activity of thousands of genes whose expression fluctuates throughout the course of a day. Knowing the structure of the CLOCK:BMAL1 complex will help researchers understand the intricacies of how this regulation is carried out and how mutations in each protein lead the biological clock to go awry.

COLLEGE STATION – Why is it that some obese people are healthier than others? This was one of the main questions Dr. Chaodong Wu of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences — Texas A&M University System — and a group of researchers tried to answer in a recent study.

The study, which will appear in a July issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, used genetically modified mice to investigate the genetic aspects of why some obese people do not develop certain medical problems typically associated with obesity, especially Type 2 diabetes.

Sure, sex may be fun, but it's a lot of work, and the payoff is by no means certain. Scientists have speculated for a long time on why all living things don't simply make like amoebas and split.

Now a biologist at Michigan Technological University has found one good reason: sexual reproduction strengthens an organism's ability to adapt; specifically, it may lead to stronger disease resistance.

Research on sex and trauma faces an ethical dilemma: how can we find out more about the effects of such psychologically sensitive topics without hurting the people who participate in the study?

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Using blood, urine and tissue analysis of a unique mouse model, a team led by UC Davis researchers has identified several proteins as diagnostic biomarkers and potential therapeutic targets for kidney cancer. Subject to follow-up validation testing, inhibition of these proteins and several related pathways holds promise as a form of therapy to slow the growth of kidney tumors.