Body

Fibrosis is a key feature of chronic pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer. The extensive deposition of extracellular matrix proteins fosters the development of an exocrine and endocrine organ insufficiency, and accelerates progression of the tumour. Pancreatic stellate cells (PSC) are the principal effector cells in pancreatic fibrosis. They are activated by profibrogenic mediators, which include, for example, cytokines and ethanol metabolites. So far, there are no therapies available to interfere with fibrogenesis in the diseased organ.

As a member of the S100 family, S100A2 is considered a candidate tumor-suppressor gene. Recently, p63 gene, a new member of the p53 gene family, has been studied in the fields of tumorigenesis, cell apoptosis and tissue growth. At present, few studies have been carried out on the expression and relationship of S100A2 and p63 in EC.

An international study involving Monash University mathematician Dr Malcolm Clark has been used to demonstrate the impact of global warming and to predict the effect further warming will have on plant life.

The study, published in the International Journal of Climatology, predicts a difference in flowering times of certain plants in certain climates by as much as 50 days by the year 2080.

Two years ago, a group of friends were enjoying a glass of wine in the Mosel region in south-west Germany when their conversation turned to the health benefits which studies attribute to the drink. During the fermentation process of making wine, by-products are left over which are often just discarded as waste and the friends reasoned that since these by-products contain the goodness of wine in an even more concentrated form, and without the alcohol, shouldn't it be more often used and consumed by humans?

As college administrators, social scientists and law enforcement officials across the country continue to debate whether the drinking age should be 18 instead of 21, and Darren Grant a Sam Houston State University economist challenges a related law: the "zero tolerance" policy. In a paper in the journal Economic Inquiry, he analyzed data from 30,000 fatalities in nighttime accidents involving drivers under 21.

More than seventy percent of people who contract Hepatitis C will live with the virus that causes it for the rest of their lives and some will develop serious liver disease including cancer. However, 30 to 40 percent of those infected somehow defeat the infection and get rid of the virus with no treatment. In this week's Publication of Nature, Johns Hopkins researchers working as part of an international team report the discovery of the strongest genetic alteration associated with the ability to get rid of the infection.

A committee of scientists led by Johns Hopkins investigators has published a new guide to the biology, diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer in never-smokers, fortifying measures for what physicians have long known is a very different disease than in smokers.

Using yeast genetics and a novel scheme to selectively remove a single protein from the cell division process called meiosis, a cell biologist at The Florida State University found that when a key molecular player known as Pds5 goes missing, chromosomes fail to segregate and pair up properly, and birth defects such as Down syndrome can result.

Attempts to eradicate tuberculosis (TB) are stymied by the fact that the disease-causing bacteria have a sophisticated mechanism for surviving dormant in infected cells. Now, a team of scientists led by researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College has identified compounds that inhibit that mechanism -- without damaging human cells. The results, described in Nature, include structural studies of how the inhibitor molecules interact with bacterial proteins, and could lead to the design of new anti-TB drugs.

Dr. Sylvain Meloche, Principal Investigator at the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC) of the Université de Montréal, and his colleagues have uncovered the critical role played by the protein kinase Erk3 in fetal growth potential and lung maturation. The recent findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveal that the loss of Erk3 function in the mouse leads to fetal growth restriction and early neonatal lethality caused by respiratory distress.

A University of Utah sleep expert has joined with researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and Stanford University to identify a genetic variation in humans, which the scientists also developed in mouse models, that allows a rare number of people to require less sleep than others.

A new analysis of extinct sea creatures suggests that the transition from egg-laying to live-born young opened up evolutionary pathways that allowed these ancient species to adapt to and thrive in open oceans.

The evolutionary sleuthing is described this week in the journal Nature by scientists at Harvard University and the University of Reading who also report that the evolution of live-born young depended crucially on the advent of genes -- rather than incubation temperature -- as the primary determinant of offspring sex.

UPTON, NY — Attempts to eradicate tuberculosis (TB) are stymied by the fact that the disease-causing bacteria have a sophisticated mechanism for surviving dormant in infected cells. Now, a team of scientists including researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, Stony Brook University (SBU), Weill Cornell Medical College, and The Rockefeller University has identified compounds that inhibit that mechanism — without damaging human cells.

A new way to select and switch on one cell type in an organism using light has helped answer a long-standing question about the function of enigmatic nerve cells in the spinal cord.

Through targeted insertion of light-sensitive switches into these cells in awake zebrafish larvae, University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Francisco scientists have found that these mysterious cells trigger burst swimming —— the periodic tail twitching typical of larvae.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Researchers from the University of Washington and the University of Florida used gene therapy to cure two squirrel monkeys of color blindness — the most common genetic disorder in people.

Writing online Wednesday in the journal Nature, scientists cast a rosy light on the potential for gene therapy to treat adult vision disorders involving cone cells — the most important cells for vision in people.