Life Sciences and Chemistry

The gene therapy was able to perform in all muscles in the mouse, and would not necessarily have to carry the dystrophy gene

Researchers have found a delivery method for gene therapy that reaches all the voluntary muscles of a mouse – including heart, diaphragm and limbs – and reverses the process of muscle-wasting found in muscular dystrophy.

“We have a clear ’proof of principle’ that it is possible to deliver new genes body-wide to all the striated muscles of an

To date epilepsy research has mainly concentrated on the transmission of the nerve cell signals to what are known as the synapses. However, recent observations by medical researchers from the US, France and the University of Bonn support the idea that in ’falling sickness’ the signal processing in the nerve cells (neurons) is altered: normally specific ion channels absorb the neuronal activity. In rats suffering from epilepsy, however, this signals brake seems impaired: they have far fewer functioni

The director of the Nanobioengineering Laboratory of the CREBEC and sub-director of the Parc Científic de Barcelona (PCB, Barcelona Science Park), Josep Samitier, will coordinate the research lines on the application of nanobiotechnologies for the differentiation of stem cells in the European project entitled CellPROM, the most funded project in the first call of the VI Framework Programme. Josep Samitier will preside the CellPROM Scientific Committee on Nanotechnologies and will join its Management

Competing theories about why brain cells die in Huntington’s disease may not be competitors after all, according to a report published July 23, 2004, in the online edition of the Annals of Neurology.

Researchers report finding minor molecular abnormalities of the sort proposed by these different theories in cells throughout the brain and even in the skin. Yet only select groups of cells in a few movement centers of the brain are so vulnerable to these disruptions that they degenerate a

A new gene mutation identified by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in Houston is part of the constellation of genes associated with susceptibility to developing type 1 diabetes. It could also play a role in the devastating complications of diabetes such as kidney failure.

The gene called SUMO-4 contributes a portion of the risk of getting this form of diabetes, which typically strikes youngsters, said Drs. David Owerbach, Kurt Bohren and Kenneth Gabbay. Owerbach and Bo

A protein characterized by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine plays an important role in communication between neurons. This protein is overactive (up-regulated) in children with Down’s Syndrome.

Identifying this protein – Dap160 — and its function is an important step in understanding how neurons communicate with one another, said Dr. Hugo Bellen, BCM professor of molecular and human genetics, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and director of the program