- Clemson University researcher regenerates brain tissue in traumatic injuries
An injectable biomaterial gel may help brain tissue grow at the site of a traumatic brain injury, according to findings by a Clemson University bioengineer. Research by assistant professor of bioengineering Ning Zhang shows that...
(Issue date: 05 September 2009)
- 60-Year-Old Drug Shows New Promise for Inherited Cancer
Cancer Research UK-funded scientists have shown that an early chemotherapy drug invented in the 1940s has the potential to work against a genetic fault called HNPCC which is linked to bowel and other cancers. HNPCC is a...
(Issue date: 05 September 2009)
- Fungal Map of Mutations Key to Increasing Enzyme Production for Bioenergy Use
In half a century, one fungus has gone from being the bane of the Army quartermasters’ existence in the Pacific to industry staple and someday, as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s mission to promote national energy...
(Issue date: 05 September 2009)
- Corrective genes closer thanks to enzyme modification
Scientists from the Université de Montréal and McGill University have re-engineered a human enzyme, a protein that accelerates chemical reactions within the human body, to become highly resistant to harmful agents such as...
(Issue date: 05 September 2009)
- DIESEL EXHAUST IS LINKED TO CANCER DEVELOPMENT VIA NEW BLOOD VESSEL GROWTH
Scientists here are the first to demonstrate that the link between diesel fume exposure and cancer lies in the ability of diesel exhaust to induce the growth of new blood vessels that serve as a food supply for solid...
(Issue date: 05 September 2009)
- Parasites persuade immune cells to invite them in for dinner, says new research
The parasites that cause leishmaniasis use a quirky trick to convince the immune system to effectively invite them into cells for dinner. The researchers, from Imperial College London, say their findings improve understanding of...
(Issue date: 27 August 2009)
- Scientists Control Living Cells With Light; Advances Could Enhance Stem Cells' Power
University of Central Florida researchers have shown for the first time that light energy can gently guide and change the orientation of living cells within lab cultures. That ability to optically steer cells could be a major...
(Issue date: 27 August 2009)
- The blossoms of maturity
A newly discovered signalling pathway ensures that plants remember to flower - even without positive signals from the environment. Plants normally flower in response to seasonal changes, such as those associated with the end of...
(Issue date: 27 August 2009)
- Understanding Intrinsic Changes in Protein Shape Could Lead to New Drugs
Computational biologists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have shown that proteins have an intrinsic ability to change shape, and this is required for their biological activity. This shape-changing also allows...
(Issue date: 27 August 2009)
- New Ultrasensitive Electronic Sensor Array Speeds Up DNA Detection
Scientists at Singapore’s Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN), the world’s first bioengineering and nanotechnology research institute, have successfully developed a novel electronic sensor array for more rapid,...
(Issue date: 27 August 2009)
- Nano-magnets guide stem cells to damaged tissue
Microscopic magnetic particles have been used to bring stem cells to sites of cardiovascular injury in a new method designed to increase the capacity of cells to repair damaged tissue, UCL scientists have announced.
The cross...
(Issue date: 21 August 2009)
- Osteoporosis research to investigate effects of cannabis on thinning bones
Scientists are to recruit 200 heavy cannabis users to investigate whether the drug has a harmful affect on users’ bones. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh believe their research programme could lead to completely new...
(Issue date: 21 August 2009)
- Fine-tuning an anti-cancer drug
Cancer remains a deadly threat despite the best efforts of science. New hopes were raised a few years ago with the discovery that the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells could be thwarted by blocking the action of proteasomes....
(Issue date: 21 August 2009)
- Evolutionarily preserved mechanism governs use of genes
Researchers at Uppsala University have found that the protein coding parts of a gene are packed in special nucleosomes. The same type of packaging is found in the roundworm C elegans, which is a primeval relative of humans. The...
(Issue date: 21 August 2009)
- From cell division to ageing
Max Planck scientists locate main cell switches
(Issue date: 21 August 2009)
- UNC researchers decode structure of an entire HIV genome
The structure of an entire HIV genome has been decoded for the first time by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The results have widespread implications for understanding the strategies that viruses,...
(Issue date: 13 August 2009)
- Natural born killers – how the body's frontline immune cells decide which cells to destroy
The mechanism used by 'Natural Killer' immune cells in the human body to distinguish between diseased cells, which they are meant to destroy, and normal cells, which they are meant to leave alone, is revealed in new detail in...
(Issue date: 13 August 2009)
- Researchers Unlocking the Healing Promise of Stem Cells Derived from Fat
Fat may carry negative connotations in today's world, but the stem cells found in fat tissue may prove valuable for their potential to heal wounds.
As Shayn Peirce-Cottler, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the...
(Issue date: 13 August 2009)
- Scientists find new way to extract diluted and contaminated DNA
University of British Columbia researchers have developed a new way to extract DNA and RNA from small or heavily contaminated samples that could help forensic investigators and molecular biologists get to "the truth."
"By...
(Issue date: 13 August 2009)
- Estrogen-Dependent Switch Tempers Killing Activity of Immune Cells
The sex hormone oestrogen tempers the killing activity of a specific group of immune cells, the cytotoxic T cells (CTLs), which are known to attack tumour cells and cells infected by viruses. The key player in this process is a...
(Issue date: 13 August 2009)
