New genomic method can identify disease-causing genes
...an diseases and toward pharmacogenetic analysis of how various drugs that are used commonly to treat disease work in humans. The paper, entitled "In Silico Genetics: Identification of a Novel Functional Element Regulating H2-Ea Gene Expression," reports that the new computational algorithm correctly ...UF scientist: 'Brain' in a dish acts as autopilot, living computer
...ed plane, giving scientists a novel way to observe how brain cells function as a network. The "brain" -...amage assessments. "We're interested in studying how brains compute," said Thomas DeMarse, the UF professor of biomedical engineering who designed the st...Researchers discover gene mutations for Parkinson's disease
...d, the discovery of this gene and further study of how it works could open up new avenues of research for preventing or delaying the onset of the disease. In research, the study of rare familial forms of a disease has often led to major insights into the pathogenesis of more common forms. The finding wa...NIH funds new bioinformatics resources at UT Southwestern
...he BioHealthBase will focus on research related to how microbes such as the influenza virus and the tuber...cobacterium tuberculosis, establish infections and how the body responds to them. A pathogen, such as the tuberculosis bacterium, interacts with cells in t...Genetics play role in response to most common asthma drug
Genes affect how asthma patients respond to albuterol, according to...tional Institutes of Health, found that over time, how participants responded to daily doses of inhaled albuterol differed depending on which form of a spe...Latest buzz in research: Intoxicated honey bees may clue scientists into drunken human behavior
...uing behavioral effects of the drink specifically how much time the bees spent flying, walking, standing... use honey bees as a model for learning more about how chronic alcohol use affects humans, particularly at the molecular level. "The honey bee nervous syst...Brain differences in adolescents, psychopaths, lend to their impulsive, risk-taking behavior
...o do with the predictability of an event than with how pleasurable it is. "These studies suggest that adolescent decisions may, in part, be due to a greater biological sensitivity to either rewards themselves or, more likely, the novelty of rewards," says Berns. "It is possible that a reward or no...Early life stress harms mental function and immune system in later years
...one potential mechanism comes from studies showing how maternal care can induce alterations in gene methy...ion in offspring. Other new research is uncovering how stresses during pregnancy and early life can affect learning and memory, as well as immune function,...Pesticides may promote Parkinson's disease and exercise may offer protection
...possess an excess of COX-2 protein. "Understanding how this protein interferes with these mechanisms may lead us to discover drugs that would allow us to control this protein in Parkinson's disease patients, possibly leading to a reduced severity of the disease's symptoms," says Przedborski....Soaking up signal: Endocytosis controls spreading and effective signaling range of Fgf8 protein
...cells are unknown. In seeking to better understand how this signaling is controlled, researchers Steffen Scholpp and Michael Brand of the University of Technology, Dresden and the Max Planck Institute-CBG, Dresden, have investigated the role of Fgf8 in the development of nascent neuroectoderm tissue in l...Sandbagging cancer in the bloodstream
...ic of major importance because it is the basis for how groups of cells form and define functionally disti... blood vessels. Up until now it has not been clear how the tumor cells actually get out of these vessels and form new tumors in distant organs, says Cheres...Potential new oncogene may be missing link in cancer-causing chain
...een a larger group of breast cancer samples to see how frequently the LRP6 gene is overactivated in tumor tissue. Because LRP6 is an essential component of a key signaling pathway and located in an exposed position on the surface of cells, Bu believes the protein may be a good target for drugs that decre...Study at Joslin shows ease of introducing technology to kids with diabetes
...for Youth (DAILY), headed by Dr. Laffel, looked at how a wireless-equipped personal digital assistant (PDA), linked with blood glucose management software and DiaBetNet, could assist in diabetes management among youth. "Research has shown that more frequent monitoring of blood glucose levels improves di...Cars, not crops, should be chief targets in reducing greenhouse gases
... Earth Sciences and Department of Biology examined how far "carbon sequestration" versus increased fuel efficiency would go toward a goal of reducing net U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent. Carbon sequestration steps include adopting no-till agriculture to retain crop wastes in the soil rathe...New center to map DNA of key lab mice
...mplex interplay among genes in order to understand how diseases develop. Examples of diseases targeted for study include: cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, asthma, and developmental disorders such as autism. Researchers already have identified dozens of genetic components to these disorders, but few we...Bug's-eye-view of urinary tract reveals E.coli infection genes
...one urinary tract infection, and know all too well how incapacitating and difficult to treat they can be.... growing conditions E. coli encountered there, and how they differed from conditions outside a living animal. "Now that we know the active virulence factor...Psychologist finds instance where 'two wrongs do make a right'
...right. This exception is the rule when it comes to how our brain processes what our eyes see and where ou...cience Foundation, challenged a dominant theory of how the brain processes vision. The theory holds that information from the eyes separates into two disti...Predicting infection risk of mosquito-borne disease
...ecting more people than ever before. Understanding how the risk of catching a mosquito-borne infection va...e at which humans become infected is determined by how often they are bitten by mosquitoes and the proportion of mosquitoes that are infectious. It is ofte...Children's Hospital Boston geneticist awarded for research on muscular dystrophy
...research from identifying genes, to understanding how mutations of these genes cause disease, to finding...stic techniques and new therapies and figuring out how to make them work. Kunkel was the first to discover, in 1986, the gene that causes Duchenne muscular......opment, are uncovering new pieces of the puzzle of how one root cell sends its molecular instructions to ...able to understanding the fundamental processes of how complex tissues develop from a few cells -- one of the central mysteries in biology. Duke Univers...