New protein provides clue to diabetes
...Hospital own the patent for the technology used to discover TUG and are licensing it to pharmaceutical companies who are employing it in the search for diabetes drug targets. Says Avruch, "TUG might turn out to be a target, or it might be the key that opens the door to understanding how the system works....University of Pittsburgh named cooperative research center for muscular dystrophy
...pesvirus vectors in functional genomics studies to discover and characterize factors that guide stem cell maturation into muscle. Also working on the Pittsburgh team is Paul D. Robbins, Ph.D., professor of molecular genetics and biochemistry and co-director of the Pittsburgh center. These new research centers...Sleep boosts ability to learn language, University of Chicago researchers find
...in birds. "We were surprised several years ago to discover that birds apparently 'dream of singing' and this might be important for song learning," Margoliash said. "Ultimately, our discussions stimulated a research design first proposed by Kim Fenn. The interdisciplinary nature of the research and the fre...National Institutes of Health grant to Rensselaer to further research on healing bone injuries
..." The new grant will allow Plopper and his team to discover and document the conditions that allow hMSC to differentiate into bone reliably and without the use of artificial growth stimulants. Treating Future Breaks With Bone Spackle Someday, these engineered bone cells could be directly injected into the s...National Science Foundation announces $14M planetary biodiversity inventory awards
... unknown to science, and traditional approaches to discover them are unacceptably slow, scientists say. Inter...nts from 31 countries, including 57 students, will discover and describe at least 1,000 new species of catfishes, including all fossil catfishes. Randall Schu...Discovery may be first plant cell surface molecule that halts cell proliferation
...ry and biophysics, were the first to independently discover this class of proteins nearly eight years ago. Dohlman found the first such protein in yeast, while Siderovski had found similar proteins in humans. Jones, who for many years has been studying the plant components equivalent to the G protein complex ...Phages point the way to novel targets for antimicrobial drug discovery
...e phage-derived antimicrobial proteins as tools to discover novel bacterial targets essential to bacterial growth. Subsequent screening against these targets has now identified several small molecule compounds that appear to mimic the phage-derived inhibitory proteins in their antimicrobial effects, and furth...OHSU scientists uncover key protein for Fanconi anemia, cancer susceptibility
...ally in the last two years as more and more people discover that it is not just a rare, orphan disease. The PHF9 project "shows there may be an even more fundamental connection not only to cancer-causing processes, but to human aging processes generally." "It shows that the research discipline intersects with...Researchers develop faster, more accurate test for mad cow disease
...rodegenerative Diseases. Prusiner was the first to discover that abnormal prion proteins can cause disease, an accomplishment that won him the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. CDI technology is now licensed to InPro Biotechnology, Inc., of San Francisco, a company founded by Prusiner. Funding for t...Sick Kids scientists identify gene for most severe form of adolescent epilepsy
...standing the basic genetic defect will allow us to discover the basic mechanisms that underlie the severe epilepsy in this disorder, but also to possibly correct the disease by therapeutic treatment," said Elayne Chan, the study's lead author and a University of Toronto graduate student. Chan is a recipient o...Improving bone implant technology
...alth. The scientists are studying such implants to discover how weight loading influences blood supply, cell differentiation, and bone healing around these increasingly common devices. To Load or Not to Load Many people who receive implants recover well as healthy tissue regenerates to lock the implanted mate...New compound library to speed drug discovery
...porate them into her library, any laboratory could discover a new application for the molecule which may yield a fiscal benefit for the company. "Basically," says Heemskerk, "they would have all of academia doing free testing for them, finding new ways to use these old drugs." While the NIH library is still ......one reproductive hot spot may also help scientists discover other such areas. But as Drazen points out, "Unlike hydrothermal vent and seamount communities, which persist for generations, reproductive hot spots may be seasonal and transitory. This makes such sites especially hard to find. We hope to learn more...Canada, US launch collaborative research programs for circulatory and respiratory health
... thrombosis (eg, clotting) in blood vessels and to discover ways that would improve current methods to prevent and control blood clots, thereby improving therapies for conditions such as heart attacks, stroke, deep vein thrombosis, and pulmonary embolism. Grant applications are due January 22, 2004, with lett...Research on relative species abundance provides new theoretical foundation
...ferent and act differently. Over time, he began to discover that many patterns that had heretofore been explained by "niches" might have a simpler explanation. Hubbell began to formulate what is now generally called "Neutral Theory." He believes that Symmetric Neutral Theory, as it is now called, is consisten...Trawlers threaten ocean's biodiversity
...eep-water redfish. Trawlers are often the first to discover seamounts, which they target using sophisticated sonar equipment. But bottom-trawling nets can do immense damage within a year or two. Studies in the Tasman Sea show that coral and crinoids, a group of suspension-feeding echinoderms, cover 90 per ce...UC Santa Barbara discovers cell survival gene may lead to treatments for degenerative diseases
.... The findings have also allowed Rothman's team to discover other genes thatact similarly to keep a check on the suicide of normal cells. Discovery ofsuch genes could lead pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs for thetreatment of cancer and degenerative diseases. The personal side of neurodegenerative di...Laboratory 'theme park' re-creates RNA world for study
...rted," says Bartel, "but every insight that we can discover is important. This is one of the most significant and fundamental questions in science, right up there with 'how does the mind work?' or 'how did the universe begin?'" Meanwhile, Bartel and his team continue working toward their goal of developing a...MicroRNAs - Tiny molecules shape up plants
... efficient or productive plants. "We will probably discover microRNAs that function in most aspects of plant development, including flowering, root growth and seed production," Carrington said. Weigel agrees: "Indeed, in unpublished work we have found that other microRNAs and their targets seem to have import......r productive plants. "We will probably discover microRNAs that function in most aspects of plant growth and development, including flowering, root structure and seed production," Carrington said. "The potential impacts of this could be quite large."...