Body

New Rochelle, NY, December 2, 2009 – New evidence-based recommendations developed by the Surgical Infection Society to guide physicians in the diagnosis and management of complicated skin and soft tissue infections have been published in Surgical Infections, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). Surgical Infections is the Official Journal of the Surgical Infection Society (SIS) and SIS-Europe.

URBANA – Two new University of Illinois studies report that lunasin, a soy peptide often discarded in the waste streams of soy-processing plants, may have important health benefits that include fighting leukemia and blocking the inflammation that accompanies such chronic health conditions as diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Physicians should "throttle back" from routinely ordering stress tests and prescribing beta blockers to patients before non-cardiac surgeries, according to a report by the University of Michigan released online this week.

Studies suggest such pre-operative tests and medications do not save lives and patients can skip them without suffering complications later, the U-M physicians write in a special report released ahead of print in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Washington – The controversy over recent breast cancer screening guidelines offers an opportunity to engage individual patients in an informed discussion of the importance of evidence-based clinical efficacy assessments in contributing to better care decisions, Donna Sweet, MD, MACP today told the Subcommittee on Health of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Dr. Sweet testified at a hearing, Breast Cancer Screening Recommendations, on behalf of the American College of Physicians (ACP).

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — MIT scientists including Elazer R. Edelman, the Thomas D. and Virginia W. Cabot Professor of Health Science and Technology (HST), and HST postdoctoral associate Vijaya B. Kolachalama, developed computer models to predict physiologically realistic drug delivery patterns from stents in branched arterial vessels. They simulated several arterial settings to show that drug distribution in these situations is determined by a complex calculation of the stent's position relative to arterial branches and constant blood flow changes caused by the branching.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — University of Florida researchers are collecting marine invertebrates on the French Polynesian island of Moorea as part of a massive effort to inventory the DNA sequence of every living species there.

The genetic information collected by scientists from UF's Florida Museum of Natural History is part of a whole-system approach that will be used to study ecological processes in depth across the entire island. Moorea's coral reefs in particular are considered crucial indicators of how natural systems respond to climate change.

In spite of their genetic similarity to humans, chimpanzees and great apes have maximum lifespans that rarely exceed 50 years. The difference, explains USC Davis School of Gerontology Professor Caleb Finch, is that as humans evolved genes that enabled them to better adjust to levels of infection and inflammation and to the high cholesterol levels of their meat rich diets.

Blacksburg, Va. ¬¬ –– Although states are not required to report fetal deaths in accident data, between 300 and 1,000 unborn babies die in car accidents each year. This accident fatality rate is about four times the rate for victims between infancy and four years old, said Stefan Duma, head of the Virginia Tech ¬¬- Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Science (SBES). http://www.sbes.vt.edu/

"There is no silver bullet to solving these problems," Duma added.

Getting the correct balance of proteins in our diet may be more important for healthy ageing than reducing calories, new research funded by the Wellcome Trust and Research into Ageing suggests.

Yale University researchers have found very large RNA structures within previously unstudied bacteria that appear crucial to basic biological functions such as helping viruses infect cells or allowing genes to "jump" to different parts of the chromosome.

An important Brandeis study appearing in the December 3 issue of Nature raises the curtain on the hidden lives of proteins at the atomic level. The study reports that for the first time, researchers used x-ray crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques to directly visualize protein structures essential for catalysis at the rare high-energy state. The study also showed how the motions of these rare, or hidden, structures collectively, directly contribute to enzyme catalysis.

PASADENA, Calif.—Researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have been able to view in detail, and for the first time, the previously mysterious process by which long chains of a protein called ubiquitin are added by enzymes called ubiquitin ligases to proteins that control the cell cycle. Ubiquitin chains tag target proteins for destruction by protein-degrading complexes in the cell.

A new study reveals how molecular motors that power important subcellular movements can generate cyclical motion. The research, published by Cell Press in the December issue of the Biophysical Journal, opens a new door to understanding motor molecules by using a computer program that faithfully simulates movement of hair-like cellular projections.

Prostate cancer patients who have a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) value of less than or equal to 1.5 at two years after external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) are less likely to have a cancer recurrence and cancer-related death, according to a study in the December 1 issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, the official journal of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).

Researchers from the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine have made an "unexpected" dual discovery that could open new avenues for treating Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, or "Ich", a devastating single-celled protozoan parasite that commonly attacks freshwater fish.

With the aid of whole-genome sequencing, researchers found that Ich harbors two apparently symbiotic intracellular bacteria: Bacteroides, which are usually found free-living, and Rickettsia, which are obligate intracellular bacteria. The two bacteria represent new species.