Life Sciences and Chemistry

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine have determined that a particular type of cellular stress called osmotic stress is of critical importance to cell growth and the body’s immune response against infection. The findings may have implications for autoimmune disorders, transplant rejections, and potential cancer therapies.

Published in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) the week of July 5, 2004, the res

Mayo Clinic researchers have discovered a gene responsible for the onset of aging, including age-related disorders such as infertility, reproductive problems and cataracts. This research, conducted in genetically modified mice, is promising in helping physicians understand and treat the same disorders in humans. The findings appear in the July issue of the journal Nature Genetics. [Baker, D.J. et al. (2004). Nat. Genet. 36, 744-749.

The discoveries came as the result of general investigati

Taken to its ultimate outcome, the research that biology professor Dr. Steve Howard is working on could help disarm deadly retroviruses such as HIV or SARS.

Howard, associate professor of biology at Middle Tennessee State University, would be the first to advise against making that kind of quantum-leap claim. It’s much too early. But assuming that the research that led to the polio vaccine first crawled, then walked, then charted a new course for civilization itself, Howard’s disco

Treatment with a new dual cell cycle and angiogenesis pathway inhibitor blocks VEGF-induced vascular permeability, inhibits tumour angiogenesis and induces apoptosis in human tumour models said Dr Gerhard Siemeister of Schering AG, Corporate Research, Berlin speaking at the 18th meeting of the European Association of Cancer Research today (Tuesday 6 July, 2004).

Loss of cell cycle control (runaway growth) and tumour-induced angiogenesis (development of new blood vessels to supply the growin

A successful, and novel, technique to kill metastatic breast cancer cells by circumventing their chemo- and radioresistant mechanisms was by presented by Dr John Giannios, Head of Radiotherapeutic Cancer Research at the IASO Hospital, Athens, Greece at the 18th Meeting of the European Association for Cancer Research today (Tuesday 6 July 2004).

Advanced breast cancer, with metastases to lung and bone, has a very poor prognosis and current treatment protocols for this stage of disease gener

Cancer incidence rates in the developed world are increasing each year and developing countries are also now showing an increased incidence of the disease. But how much were our ancestors affected by the disease? Dr Mario Slaus of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Zagreb presented archaeological findings at the 18th Meeting of the European Association of Cancer Research (EACR-18) in Innsbruck today (6 July 2004), suggesting that the disease was very uncommon even in our recent ancestors, r