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 Back to Eurekalert Medical and Health News Archives
Eurekalert Medical and Health News: 09-21-2004
The University of Illinois at Chicago unveiled today the world's most powerful magnetic resonance imaging machine for human studies, capable of imaging not just the anatomy but metabolism within the brain.
The eradication of brain tumors in mice following treatment with a novel drug suggests that certain cancers might one day be cured without the use of toxic chemotherapy and radiation. This finding, by investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, is published in the current issue of Cancer Cell.
The highly evolved pathogen Burkholderia mallei - which causes the horse disease glanders and has been used as a biowarfare agent - shows a highly regulated set of virulence genes and an unstable genome that may explain the bacterium's ability to thwart the immune responses of its host animals.
Broken bones often mean lifelong disability in the developing world, due to a lack of access to simple, inexpensive initial treatment, says the director of the University of Toronto's international surgery program.
In addition to its popular role in flavoring ice cream, fudge and cake frosting, vanilla may have a future use as a medicine. Recent laboratory research in mice has strengthened the possibility that a form of vanilla may become a drug to treat sickle cell disease.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine report a novel strategy for stimulating the production of utrophin - an important muscle protein in young mice - for muscular dystrophy therapy. The investigators gave mdx mice (the mouse model for Duchenne's muscular dystrophy) heregulin, a small molecule to turn on the production of utrophin in their muscles. Utrophin improved muscle function in the mdx mice.
A single gene called cylE within the important bacterial pathogen Group B Streptococcus (GBS), controls two factors that act together as a "sword" and "shield" to protect the bacteria from the killing effects of the immune system's white blood cells, according to researchers at the UCSD School of Medicine.
Children who had intravenous (IV) access for ear tube placement surgery spent more time in the operating room and in the hospital and required more pain medication than children who underwent the same procedure without IV access, according to an article in the September issue of The Archives of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Patients with vitiligo, a skin disorder characterized by patches of white, or de-pigmented skin, had better repigmentation of these patches when they were treated with a combination of laser therapy and tacrolimus ointment than patients treated with laser therapy alone, according to an article in the September issue of The Archives of Dermatology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Although there is an increased risk of wound complications in patients who underwent breast reconstruction directly after mastectomy, the procedure did not delay the initiation of postsurgical chemotherapy, according to an article in the September issue of The Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Critically injured obese trauma patients have higher rates of death than nonobese trauma patients, according to an article in the September issue of The Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Cosmetic surgery is perceived as less risky with a shorter recovery time and less pain than plastic or reconstructive surgery, according to an article in the September issue of The Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Researchers have combined sophisticated biochemical and imaging techniques to get a glimpse of the stepwise assembly of amyloid fibers in a yeast prion protein. Their findings suggest that these structured fibers form in competition with the amorphous globules that some believe may cause toxicity in amyloid diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The researchers say this may have important implications for those designing drugs to prevent formation of the brain-damaging proteins in those diseases.
By specifically deleting the adhesion protein d-catenin, which is found exclusively in the brain, researchers have found evidence that loss of d-catenin produces severe cognitive and synaptic dysfunction. Researchers have been particularly interested in d-catenin because clinical observations suggest it plays a critical role in brain function.
It is common to say "I can't believe my eyes" when surprised by what we see. Recent scientific evidence suggests that we are right to be sceptical and that what we see depends in no small part on what we expect to see. In new work reported this week, researchers have made headway in understanding how signaling in the brain allows expectation to influence visual perception.
A new research study identifies a molecule that promotes one of the most deadly cancers in humans and reveals the molecular mechanisms underlying the protective effects of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) against the disease. The research, published in the September issue of Cancer Cell, identifies potential targets for future therapeutics aimed at the prevention and treatment of cancer of the colon and rectum.
Scientists have identified what may be the first nontoxic treatment for a subset of medulloblastoma, the most common type of malignant pediatric brain tumor. The finding is encouraging in that such precise, targeted therapies may someday replace traditional treatments that can have overwhelmingly negative side effects for pediatric cancer patients.
Researchers at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) have provided the first evidence that blocking a cellular receptor can inhibit the development of pre-cancerous colon polyps in mice. The research suggests a new avenue for stopping or preventing colon cancer, which kills more than 50,000 Americans each year.The receptor, called PPARdelta, plays an important role in development, wound healing and fat metabolism. The scientists reported that they could inhibit polyp development in mice by "knocking out" the PPARdelta gene.
A new strategy for cancer therapy, which converts the tumor-promoting effect of the immune system's inflammatory response into a cancer-killing outcome, is suggested in research findings by investigators at UCSD School of Medicine.
A Johns Hopkins study suggests that people with type I and type II diabetes would be well advised to monitor their blood sugar levels more than the usual twice daily to make sure that levels are not elevated over 150 milligrams per deciliter for sustained periods.
Though thyroid cancer is one of the most curable forms of cancer, side effects including hypothyroidism can be debilitating. In the September issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, a team of researchers from the Netherlands and Belgium reported on a new technique that allows patients to maintain their normal course of thyroid medication prior to and during radioiodine therapy, thus eliminating the risk for most side effects.
Immunoglobulins which are already being used to treat multiple sclerosis may also be able to help patients with Alzheimer's. This, at least, is the finding of a pilot study on five patients at the University of Bonn. The results are set out in the forthcoming edition of the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry (vol. 75, pp. 1472-1474), which also devotes its editorial to this discovery.
A group from the Salk institute illuminates the structural basis for tetraketide cyclization in stilbene synthase, the enzyme that produces resveratrol, the beneficial phytonutrient found in red wine.
With the goal of finding effective drug leads with which to combat SARS, researchers from the University of Hong Kong conducted a chemical genetic screen to isolate compounds with anti-SARS-CoV activity.
Scientists are a step closer to understanding the health benefits of drinking red wine. Researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and affiliated with the Salk Institute in San Diego, Calif., have succeeded in converting chalcone synthase, a biosynthetic protein enzyme found in all higher plants, into an efficient resveratrol synthase.
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