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3-D look at prion may help find cure to brain diseases, University of Alberta work shows
Date: Aug-02-2013The work of University of Alberta researchers and their teams has contributed to an important next step in finding a cure for deadly prion-folding diseases in humans and animals. Professor Michael James of the University of Alberta Department of Biochemistry, Professor Nat Kav of the Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science and their labs collaborated to produce mini-antibodies and antibody fragments used by the Institute of Neuropathology in Zurich to study interactions between the antibodies and the prion protein and how it results in cell death...
Tiny, brightly shining silicon crystals could be safe for deep-tissue imaging
Date: Aug-02-2013Tiny silicon crystals caused no health problems in monkeys three months after large doses were injected, marking a step forward in the quest to bring such materials into clinics as biomedical imaging agents, according to a new study. The findings, published online July 10 in the journal ACS Nano, suggest that the silicon nanocrystals, known as quantum dots, may be a safe tool for diagnostic imaging in humans...
Could diabetes pill metformin work against aging?
Date: Aug-02-2013Researchers have discovered that a pill used to treat type 2 diabetes has improved health and lifespan in middle-aged male mice. The study was recently published in Nature Communications. Researchers at the National Institute of Aging (NIA), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US, tested the type 2 diabetes drug metformin on the mice. Metformin has been prescribed for diabetes since the 1960s. It is known to prompt sugar conversion to energy in the body, as well as to prevent the build up of sugar in the liver, which enhances insulin sensitivity...
New poll shows minority populations support clinical trials to improve health of others
Date: Aug-02-2013Altruism is a strong motivating factor for clinical trial participation in the general population and even more so among several minority groups. A significant percentage of African-Americans (61%), Hispanics (57%) and Asians (50%) say it's very important to participate as a volunteer in a clinical trial to improve the health of others, compared to 47% of non-Hispanic whites, according to a new national public opinion poll commissioned by Research!America. These findings are tempered by the reality that participation remains disturbingly low among all groups...
Gene variant providing sleeping sickness resistance linked to kidney disease
Date: Aug-02-2013A new study led by University of Pennsylvania researchers involves a classic case of evolution's fickle nature: a genetic mutation that protects against a potentially fatal infectious disease also appears to increase the risk of developing a chronic, debilitating condition. Such a relationship exists between malaria and sickle cell anemia. Individuals who carry a gene to resist the former are carriers for the latter...
Oncos Therapeutics granted orphan drug designation for CGTG-102 in soft tissue sarcoma (STS) by FDA and EMA
Date: Aug-02-2013Oncos Therapeutics Ltd, a private, clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the development and commercialization of targeted oncolytic immunotherapies for solid tumors, announced today that the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) have granted orphan drug designation for CGTG-102, a granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor-coding oncolytic adenovirus (Ad5/3-D24-GMCSF) for the treatment of soft tissue sarcoma. "We are pleased to receive orphan drug designations for CGTG-102 from the two leading regulatory agencies in the world...
Studying the emotions which cause opinions to change
Date: Aug-02-2013Social phenomena fascinate with their complexity, but are not easily understood. Pawel Sobkowicz, an independent researcher based in Warsaw, Poland, has developed a model to study the dynamics of normal people, called 'agents', and their response to a given piece of information, depending on their emotional state. In a study about to be published in EPJ B, the author shows that opinion dynamics differ depending on whether the agent is agitated or not. Key social questions of interest have been the object of previous studies using physics tools...
Sensitive parenting can boost premature children's school performance
Date: Aug-02-2013Sensitive parenting helps protect against the negative effects of being born prematurely on children's school success, a new study has found. Children born prematurely are at risk of a variety of neurological impairments which can mean they are more likely to need special educational support when they reach school age. But a new study led by the University of Warwick shows that parents of very preterm and very low birthweight (VP/VLBW) children can increase their child's academic achievement through sensitive and cognitively stimulating parenting...
Insect-inspired super rubber moves toward practical uses in medicine
Date: Aug-02-2013The remarkable, rubber-like protein that enables dragonflies, grasshoppers and other insects to flap their wings, jump and chirp has major potential uses in medicine, scientists conclude in an article in the journal ACS Macro Letters. It evaluates the latest advances toward using a protein called resilin in nanosprings, biorubbers, biosensors and other applications. Kristi Kiick and colleagues explain that scientists discovered resilin a half-century ago in the wing hinges of locusts and elastic tendons of dragonflies. The extraordinary natural protein tops the best synthetic rubbers...
Scientists decode mechanisms of cell orientation in the brain
Date: Aug-02-2013When the central nervous system is injured, oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPC) migrate to the lesion and synthesize new myelin sheaths on demyelinated axons. Scientists at the Institute of Molecular Cell Biology at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have now discovered that a distinct protein regulates the direction and movement of OPC toward the wound. The transmembrane protein NG2, which is expressed at the surface of OPCs and down-regulated as they mature to myelinating oligodendrocytes, plays an important role in the reaction of OPC to wounding...
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