NIH gives $8M to University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine for myositis research
... study, rituximab is considered to be experimental because it is not FDA approved for the treatment of dermatomyositis or polymyositis. The study doctors believe that the symptoms of myositis are related to the presence of B cells in the blood and rituximab is being given to reduce the number of blood B cell...Study begins to reveal clues to the cause and progression of sepsis
...ve that these treatments failed, at least in part, because of insufficient data to fully understand the complexity and variability of the inflammatory response to sepsis. To gain a better understanding into the mechanisms behind the condition, the researchers conducted the Genetic and Inflammatory Markers of...Saudi Arabia's KAUST names WHOI first research partner
...our fields of research, ocean research is critical because the coastal campus includes 19 million square met...treasure our relationship with Woods Hole not only because it is our first formal collaboration with another world-class research institution, said Nadhmi Al...Multinational research: protecting ecology means understanding people, too
...r careers. The effort is timely, Fitzgerald said, because a wave of retirements is about to sweep over those U.S. agencies where long-time, experienced biologists have been studying the ecological problems for decades. More than one half of the Senior Executive Service members at the Department of the Inte...Climate change isolates Rocky Mountain butterflies
...pollo butterfly (Parnassius) inhabits open meadows because they, like other types of butterflies, need sunlight to generate enough body heat in order to fly, and forests are generally too shady for them and inhibit their ability to move. However, expanding forests are pinching off the Parnassius from their...Beyond batteries: Storing power in a sheet of paper
...ble important new engineering innovations. Plus, because of the high paper content and lack of toxic chemicals, its environmentally safe, Shaijumon said. Paper is also extremely biocompatible and these new hybrid battery/supercapcitors have potential as power supplies for devices implanted in the body. Th...Clones on task serve greater good, evolutionary study shows
...s Dworkin puts it, Canalization is the robustness, because in many cases its better to just shake off the minor fluctuations in the environment because in evolution, there are optimal traits to have, a place you want to be. Canalization prevents you fr...Which came first, the moth or the cactus?
... what he's learned in the desert. That's important because his ultimate goal reaches far beyond the Sonoran Desert to a fundamental rethinking of ecological theory for such mutualistic interactions. "I develop theoretical models, equations that attempt to explain mutualistic relationships like the one betw...Bursts of waves drive immune system 'soldiers' toward invaders
...ng. This results in a wave that moves undiminished because of the self-activation, and in one direction, because of the inhibition it leaves in its wake," he says. The scientists observed the Hem-1 activation o...Protein 'chatter' linked to cancer activation
...e faster are at a higher risk of developing cancer because short chromosome ends are a serious threat to the stability of our genome. When the genome becomes unstable, it puts our bodies at greater risk of cancer. Zhu adds that patients with ataxia telangiectasia, ataxia telangiectasia-like disorder, and ...Features of replication suggest viruses have common themes, vulnerabilities
...e common attributes. Such a discovery is important because it reveals a common viral theme that may be vulnerable to disruption and could lead to the development of drugs to treat many different kinds of viral infections, much like antibiotics are used to attack different kinds of bacterial pathogens. "It ...Doernbecher Children's Hospital scientist earns coveted Javits award
...t the developing brain fails to make normalmyelin, because the oligo-cells that make the myelin were completelykilled. Hence, it was thought that the children with CP sustainpermanent abnormalities in movement and intellect," Back explained."However, our recent studies suggest that this view may not becorrec...Gene regulation, not just genes, is what sets humans apart
...one until the macaque genome was published in 2005 because they needed a third, closely related relative to c...uldnt work for analyzing the non-coding sequences, because theyre too different from humans and chimps, Haygood said. While the biochemistry that cells use t...Does the desire to consume alcohol and tobacco come from our genetic makeup?
...ls in the blood). (These variables were important because the excessive use of alcohol and tobacco may cause cardiovascular disorders like hypertension, so finding the genomic determinants behind alcohol and tobacco use may point to novel mechanisms for blood pressure modification by these substances.) The ...High blood pressure, low energy -- a recipe for heart failure
...in high blood pressure conditions, the heart fails because it becomes energy starved. And if you could feed t...hen a heart cell finds itself short on energy, say because it's being called on to contract harder or faster, its ERR is activated by an inducible co-activator...Abnormal fat metabolism underlies heart problems in diabetic patients
...tes. "Diabetic hearts run mostly on fats for fuel because glucose isn't readily available to them," says Ric...literally means heart fat, and the term was coined because cardiolipin was first discovered in beef hearts and is one of the most abundant lipids in heart tiss...Swarming starlings help probe plasma, crowds and stock market
...These are difficult to study at the best of times because the opportunities to view plasma in the solar wind are limited by the small number of satellites observing such things and plasmas in nuclear fusion reactions are obviously not easily accessible. The University of Warwick researchers were particul...Tropical insects 'go the distance' to inform rainforest conservation
...to and Hulcr were key collaborators on the project because of their expertise related to the biology and ecology of the bark and ambrosia beetle family, a model group of insects compoprised of 6,000 species worldwide, and one common to tropical rain forests. What we found was that the composition of the c...deCODE discovers cause of major subtype of glaucoma
...l. This discovery is remarkable and important because the genetics has led us directly to what appears to be the sole cause of a devastating common disease. The risk conferred by these variants is such that it accounts for virtually all cases of exfoliation glaucoma, meaning that if we can neutralize th......, according to a business plan for Yecuris. That's because the liver is the principal site for the metabolism...t be used instead of cells from laboratory animals because liver enzymes that break down these compounds are species specific. "Animal liver cells process drug...