Health and Medicine

Researchers funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences have determined the structure of a protein with a surprising feature in it: a knot. This is the first time a knot has been found in a protein from the most ancient type of single-celled organism, an archaebacterium, and one of only a few times a knot has been seen in any protein structure.

This very unusual protein shape finding is a result from the NIGMS Protein Structure Initiative, a 10-year effort to determine 10,0

For wearers of prosthetic or false limbs, the comfort and effectiveness of the socket fit is crucial. New ways of measuring and solving socket pressure points – using load analysis techniques from the aircraft industry – have been developed by engineering and computing researchers at the University of the West of England.

A team from UWE’’s Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences has just been awarded a grant of £52,000 by the charity Remedi to further their res

A new finding of a link between an anxiety disorder and peptic ulcer disease lends support to the view that this gastrointestinal disease and anxiety disorder may share a common link. In recent years, attention has focused on a more biological element with the identification of bacteria as a cause of peptic ulcers.

“The identification of Helicobacter pylori as an infectious cause of peptic ulcer disease has been considered by many to disprove the possibility that there is an important relat

Harvard Medical School researchers have uncovered an ovary gene whose absence from mouse egg cells produced severe pregnancy complications. The gene, Fmn2, which produces the protein formin-2, is similar in mice and humans and offers promise for understanding embryo loss, birth defects, and infertility in women. The study appears in the December Nature Cell Biology.

“As humans we are incredibly bad at producing eggs with the normal number of chromosomes, which is the leading cause of pregnan

A new technique to aid early detection of skin cancer could also help fight serious eye diseases such as those caused by diabetes.

The technique has been developed at the University of Birmingham with funding from the Swindon-based Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. It involves using an innovative form of image analysis to tell the difference between skin cancer and other types of skin damage. This allows the cancer to be identified earlier and treated more quickly,

A woman with an obstructed cervix has been successfully treated for infertility using a technique known as intraperitoneal insemination (IPI). The technique, described in a case report just published in BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, is less invasive and cheaper than alternative infertility treatments, which involve the harvesting of a woman’s eggs. Scott Sills from the Atlanta Medical Center and Gianpiero Palermo from the Cornell Institute for Reproductive Medicine describe how they wer