A new target for the treatment of breast cancer
...microenvironment that surrounds the cell. "It is becoming increasingly apparent that, as with other organs, the biogenesis of the tumor represents an interaction between the tumor cell, other types of cells and the rest of the microenvironment," she said. Kenny and Bissell successfully tested their protea...JCI table of contents -- January 11, 2006
...eptor for EGF or its downstream signaling proteins becoming constantly activated. However, a study using a human breast cancer cell line, which appears online on January 11 in advance of publication in the February print issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, shows that increased amounts of another m...Delay in use of nevirapine-based AIDS treatment can improve outcomes
...virapine during labor to prevent their babies from becoming infected, suggests a new study in The New England Journal of Medicine. The findings could potentially change treatment approaches for millions of mothers infected with the AIDS virus. The study appears in the January 11, 2007, issue of the journal. ...Tumor-free breast tissue can have precancerous changes
...Tumor-suppressor genes normally protect cells from becoming cancerous, but the gradual silencing of these genes by abnormal methylation is thought to be an early change in cancer development. In addition, the study identified three other genes that were abnormally methylated in both tumor and normal tissues...Tumor-suppressor gene is critical for placenta development
...or gene, a class of genes that protects cells from becoming cancerous. It has since been shown to be inactivated in many cancers. In this study, researchers shut off the Rb gene in stem cells that give rise to most of the placenta, resulting in an abnormal placenta and death of the embryos. The findings p...Jefferson scientists find guardian gene's choices crucial to stopping cancer process
...prings into action, protecting a damaged cell from becoming cancer. The gene can either halt the cell's growth or send it spiraling toward certain death. How this choice is made, the researchers say, could have implications for future strategies in chemotherapy drug development. According to Steven McMahon,...How trees manage water in arid environments
Water scarcity is slowly becoming a fact of life in increasingly large areas. The summer of 2006 was the second warmest in the continental United States since records began in 1895, according to the National Climatic Data Center. Moderate to extreme drought conditions were evident ...Understanding the Arctic -- NSF-funded expeditions cover new ground in climate science
...ects of climate change appear in the Arctic before becoming apparent in other regions. But scientists know more about the nature and origins of the surface of the moon than they do about the make up of the Arctic sea floor. Scientists with the Healy-Oden Trans-Arctic Expedition (HOTRAX) are exploring how th...Feinstein Institute and Cold Spring Harbor Lab join forces, seek manic depression genes
...that goes beyond the day's ordinary ups and downs, becoming a serious medical condition and an important health concern in the United States. More than 2.3 million American adults are diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and research suggests that at least a quarter of a million children and adolescents are also ...Climate change has surprising effect on endangered naked carp
...d and grow. However, Lake Qinghai is drying up and becoming increasingly more saline--leading to surprising adjustments to the carps' metabolic rate. Naked carp take seven to ten years to reach reproductive size. Although historically abundant, overfishing and destruction of spawning habitat through dam-bu...Hyaluronate reverses skin atrophy
...n. No-one knows why skin atrophy occurs, but it is becoming more common as people live longer, and there is no effective treatment for it. One characteristic of atrophic skin is that, compared to normal skin, it contains less hyaluronatea large carbohydrate component of the extracellular matrix, the material ...Pesticides need sunscreen to beat the heat
...istry & Industry, the magazine of the SCI. This is becoming increasingly important as temperatures rise, with the Met Office announcing that several heat records were broken in the UK this year. The team of scientists, led by Dr Li-Xiong Wen, has developed a new type of capsule that shields pesticides from ...Experts advise world policies to cope with causes, rising consequences of creeping desertification
...and ecosystems for food and water; Droughts are becoming more frequent and climate change is likely to increase water scarcity in regions already water stressed as they accommodate a third of world population with only 8% of global renewable freshwater resources; The effects of desertification, however, ...... are regulated by "intrinsic factors" but its also becoming increasingly clear that their "stemness" depends on the unique microenvironment called the stem cell niche. No adult or somatic stem cells have a more complex niche life than hematopoietic stem cells, which give rise to all the different types of...For crickets, parasitic flies can stop the music
...ng males in the fall, perhaps unknowingly avoiding becoming the target of the flies themselves. The findings, reported in a pair of recent papers in the journals Ethology and Animal Behavior, are of interest because they shed light on the interplay between the powerful evolutionary forces of sexual selectio...Combination of technologies works best against E. coli
...out E. coli 0157:H7, a nasty little pathogen thats becoming far too familiar to Americans, say University of Illinois scientists Scott Martin and Hao Feng. And they should know because they work on this problem in their labs every day. The food science professors work with ozone, high-intensity ultrasound, ...LSU professor discovers new species
...e said. "Using DNA to help describe new species is becoming one of the most important tools for scientists to use in documenting and describing biodiversity." The global decline of biodiversity has become a major public issue recently, and the use of modern molecular methods is proving to be fundamental in g...Studies at cancer conference show new therapies changing outlook for blood cancer patients
...ow myeloma responds to treatment, which is already becoming applicable to other cancers. The patient groups studied cover the full range, from relapsed patients to the newly diagnosed, young to old, and include patients with an otherwise poor prognosis due to chromosomal abnormalities. In some cases the d...MIT: Engineered yeast speeds ethanol production
...uels such as E85, which is 85 percent ethanol, are becoming common in states where corn is plentiful; however, their use is mainly confined to the Midwest because corn supplies are limited and ethanol production technology is not yet efficient enough. Boosting efficiency has been an elusive goal, but the MIT......uels such as E85, which is 85 percent ethanol, are becoming common in states where corn is plentiful; however, their use is mainly confined to the Midwest because corn supplies are limited and ethanol production technology is not yet efficient enough. Boosting efficiency has been an elusive goal, but the re...