Gene therapy converts dead bone graft to new, living tissue
... instead of a foreign object, which would normally trigger the body to wrap the "invader" in scar tissue. "T...for up to three weeks, long enough for the body to trigger the perpetual bone remodeling response. Stem cells have also seen success in this area, but Schwarz ...Climate change to bring a wave of new health risks
... play. Strong El Nino events, for example, tend to trigger heavier rainfall in the American southwest, setting the stage for rodent population booms and increased risk of exposure to hanta virus, a sometimes deadly disease transmitted through rodent urine and droppings. Such events can be predicted with conf...Probable trigger of kidney disease in diabetics identified
Researchers identified a protein that might trigger kidney disease in diabetic patients, a condition that affects one in three people with type 1 and one in ten people with type 2 diabetes. According to a new study led by researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Thomas Jefferson University pu...Plants, animals share molecular growth mechanisms
...normally, activators such as ARP 2/3 are needed to trigger actin filaments' formation and growth, Szymanski said. However, scientists don't know the specific function of certain actin filaments. The molecular tools Szymanski's research team developed will help scientists learn more about these functions in b...Termites feed through good vibrations
...ow to ignore most noise but have some signals that trigger attention that may prove useful in artificial intelligence. CSIRO entomologist Theo Evans says laboratory experiments have found that termites use their ability to detect vibrations to determine which food source is most suitable. The termites can a...It's not all genetic: Common epigenetic problem doubles cancer risk in mice
...e risk that a cancer-causing genetic mutation will trigger a tumor there. Roughly 10 percent of people have this double protein dose as well. In the Feb. 24 online version of Science , the researchers report that mice engineered to have a double dose of insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF2) develop more so-ca...Fruit fly study points to treatment for fragile X syndrome
...ansmitters, launched from one neuron to another to trigger nerve impulses in the receiving neuron. Reasoning that mGluR hyperactivity might underlie many of the pathologies of Fragile X syndrome, McBride and his colleagues tested whether drugs that blocked the receptor's activity might restore normal functio...UCI researchers identify trigger for onset of Alzheimer's, aiding search for new therapies
Researchers at UC Irvine have identified a trigger at the molecular level that marks the onset of mem...tangles associated with Alzheimer's disease. The trigger is a protein called "beta amyloid" that accumulates within neurons in the mice's brains. Although se...Oceans more vulnerable to agricultural runoff than previously thought, study finds
...uspected that fertilizer runoff from big farms can trigger sudden explosions of marine algae capable of disru...d if each fertilization and irrigation event would trigger a noticeable phytoplankton bloom near the mouth of the Yaqui River, which is located on the mainland...Researchers report new pro-inflammatory role for anti-inflammatory enzyme
...n macrophages and that this effect is an essential trigger for the induction of iNOS. "eNOS has until recently been thought to act principally in an anti-inflammatory manner," notes Dr. Hobbs. "The results of our study show clearly that eNOS can also act in a pro-inflammatory manner and accelerate host-defen...Silence the gene, save the cell: RNA interference as promising therapy for ALS
... in the cell where the protein is synthesized. To trigger RNA interference and silence a gene, short bits of double-stranded RNA are introduced in the cell, where they bind with matching sections of messenger RNA. The cell identifies the resulting messenger RNA strand as faulty and chops it up. As a result,...Researchers rein in regulatory RNAs
... of the overlapping partner gene. SATs might also trigger posttranscriptional gene regulation via RNA interference (RNAi) by virtue of their ability to form double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) molecules. A large proportion of these antisense RNAs represent non-coding RNAs. Thus, the researchers expect that these r......w that the robot image is just that, Kismet's eyes trigger something more deep-seated. We can manipulate altruistic behaviour with a pair of fake eyeballs because ancient parts of our brain fail to recognise them as fake, he says. He believes that strong reciprocity is an illusion because even though volun...High cholesterol levels accelerate growth of prostate cancer
...oliferate. Increased cholesterol levels didn't trigger new cancers in the mice, but six weeks after tumor cells were injected, the incidence of tumors was more than doubled in the mice on high-cholesterol diets, and the tumors were markedly larger in size. "What we're looking at is progression, not init...Institute for Medical Research scientists identify gene critical to type 1 diabetes
...cells, so that insulin can no longer be made. That trigger is unknown, but viruses, foods and genes have all been suspected of playing a role. "We've shown that the MIF gene is crucial for the development of type 1 diabetes," said Dr. Al-Abed. The scientists believe that MIF plays a major role in the cascade...Genomic analysis to become tool for studying trauma patients
...approximately two decades that critical injury can trigger the release of immune factors that cause massive inflammation, and this can sometimes overwhelm the body's ability to cope," Cobb says. "We have produced a great deal of insight into how those inflammatory responses are generated, and we've tried a n...Carnegie Mellon scientists develop tool that uses MRI to visualize gene expression in living animals
...mals and perform laborious and costly analysis. To trigger living cells into producing their own contrast agent, Ahrens gave them a gene that produces a form of ferritin, a protein that normally stores iron in a non-toxic form. This metalloprotein acts like a nano-magnet and a potent MRI "reporter." A typica...The Bacteria's guide to survival
...al mechanical pull on the host cell membrane could trigger a signaling cascade in the host cells to affect the host's gene expression. Many of the genes that increased in activity due to the tugs were already known to regulate apoptosis and cellular response to stress, including mechanical strain on the m...TEL2 gene cooperates with MYC gene to provoke B-cell lymphomas
...reased TEL2 activity reduces the cell's ability to trigger apoptosis in response to relentless prodding by MYC to keep multiplying. As the process of apoptosis becomes sluggish, the population of B lymphocytes increases. The greater the number of these cells, the more likely some of them will eliminate their...Plants defy Mendel's inheritance laws, may prompt textbook changes
...lieves that this particular DNA sequence is just a trigger for the phenomenon. He suspects that a number of o... mechanism for inheritance may require a different trigger to make it work in animals," he said. Once scientists understand more about the mechanism, they then...