MGH research shows gene therapy may be able to reverse heart failure
...opies of a gene called SERCA2a tomuscle cells from failing human hearts. Cells that incorporated the gene an...fully. "This ability to modify the contraction of failing human cardiac cells represents an importantstep toward gene therapy for heart failure," says Roger H...Zebrafish's powerful heart gene could lead to transplant therapy
...etri dish and then transplantthem into people with failing hearts. "Discovery of a gene that could convert human embryonic stem cells intomyocardial cells would be golden," said Didier Stainier, PhD, UCSF assistantprofessor of biochemistry and biophysics, the senior author of the UCSF studyand a pioneer in t...Creatine may improve performance during short bursts of activity
...inning a competition and failing to qualify for that competition, Leenders said. Neither the male nor the female swimmers showed improvement in the 25-yard swims. This could be related ...Injured spinal neurons reach out to each other, but not to healthy neighbors
...hey established the bridges only among themselves, failing to connect with nearby healthy cells. The scientists also examined the proteins used to build these bridges, called connexins. They found that the amount and types of connexin proteins present in the neurons did not change after nerve injury. This...Gene transfer improves function of aging hearts in animals
... to the complete syndrome. It is well known that failing hearts do not properly handle calcium, a mineral t...f the SERCA2a gene could improve the function of a failing heart, whether the same strategy could alleviate diastolic dysfunction had not yet been tested. In ......varian carcinoma whose tumors had progressed after failing to respond to both first and second-line chemotherapy. They were treated with seven weekly intradermal injections of O-Vax. Despite their large tumor burdens and prior chemotherapy, 8 out of 10 patients responded favorably to the vaccine, as measure...UCSF researchers find evidence of faulty DNA repair in some infertile men
...ot expected. " We wondered if infertile men with failing testicles that had a "look" similar to the testes from the altered mice would also show defective DNA repair," Reijo Pera said. "We asked if the testis tissue of these infertile men showed certain "fingerprints" characteristic of a problem repairing ...Heart failure patients with worst heart function are good candidates for pacemakers
...d blood out to the body. Kass' team likens the failing heart to an automobile engine. If the engine pistons aren't timed correctly, the car will still move but will have worse fuel economy. Likewise, the heart that's out of "sync" will still pump blood, but not efficiently. The idea behind treatment ...... learning. They went to ground after being caught, failing to appear again until subsequent trips. On the first day in the remote site, each angler would typically catch 10 fish. But the haul vanished almost to nothing on the third day. "Fish in the remote river were very sensitive to anglers," says Hayes....Lead-contaminated calcium supplements pose small but avoidable risk
...d the women's dose 3 micrograms. But people with failing kidneys, who often are directed to consume many times the normal dose calcium, could find themselves taking in as much as 20 micrograms of lead daily, according to the study. Also at risk for higher lead ingestion are people who greatly exceed recomm...Press invitation: The science of stem cells - December symposium at Imperial College
...al said: The potential use of stem cells to repair failing body parts could lead to revolutionary developments in regenerative medicine. Parliament is currently discussing the possibility of allowing scientists to derive human embryonic stem cells and specific cell lineages, e.g. bone, heart or brain. If thi...Cold water off Brazil might be causing Argentine penguin nest failures
...Boersma said, many of the nests at Punta Tombo are failing because it is taking the adult penguins so long to return. A female penguin stays on the nest and fasts while the male goes for food. Typically the male is gone about two weeks before returning for nest-tending duties and to let the female end her fa...Job stress may lead to back injury for some people, study finds
...ave been particularly upset by failing at the task, while intuitors may have disliked having to repeat the task when they failed. Heaney was surprised by the results. "I didn't think we would find much of a change in lifting fro...Finding could lead to new approach for treating severe heart disease
...es. Numerous techniques for introducing VEGF into failing heart muscle in animals and humans have prompted blood vessel formation and improved circulation in damaged tissue. However, each strategy has had short-lasting effects, caused an immunologic reaction, or led to the formation of angiomas, or tumors. ......into the non-small cell type, a form notorious for failing to respond to chemotherapy. But just how that happens has been a mystery. Now UF researchers have linked a protein known as protein kinase C-epsilon, or PKC-epsilon for short, to this transition. While the gene for the protein does exist naturally......and his colleagues have been widely criticised for failing to show that they'd protected their ancient genetic sample from contamination. Indeed, only one of the several possible evolutionary trees that can be derived from their data supports an ancient age for the sequence in question. But there are other t...Doctors failure to reevaluate asthma severity hurts wheezing sufferers
...lly reevaluate their patients' asthma severity are failing to provide good care to asthma sufferers, report Johns Hopkins physicians May 20 at the American Thoracic Society's annual meeting. "We found that doctors were not reevaluating their patient's underlying asthma severity estimates and that these esti...Doctors miss chance to advise women of vitamin that prevents birth defects, survey finds
...sing a key birth defects prevention opportunity by failing to tell their female patients to take a multivitamin every day, according to a new national survey released today by the March of Dimes. Fewer than one-third of American women of childbearing age not currently pregnant take a daily multivitamin conta...Bigger betas are better Protein found to provide pancreatic cells with protection against diabetes
...d helping cells convert glucose into energy. After failing to induce diabetes in their experimental mice by killing β cells, Birnbaum and his colleagues found that there was a significant increase in both β cell size and the total mass of the islets. According to Birnbaum, Akt1 is a potent factor ...Columbia team finds treatment that corrects cellular defect at the root of heart failure
...ascular disease - can correct a specific defect in failing hearts. "Up until now we have been treating sympto... heart failure, understanding the basic defects in failing hearts should pave the way for multiple new forms of treatment."...