Life Sciences and Chemistry

UCLA graduate student Jeffrey Riffell and UCLA biology professor Richard Zimmer report the first experimental test on the role of small-scale physics as it influences the interactions between sperm and egg, and the consequences for fertilization, at the annual conference of the Association for Chemoreception Sciences in Sarasota, Fla., April 10.

“The physics of fluid motion has a profound consequence on the ability of sperm to navigate and find an egg, and therefore on fertilization,” Zimmer

Canadian-led project generates database with medical annotation available to the public

Scientists at The Hospital for Sick Children (HSC) have compiled the complete DNA sequence of human chromosome 7 and decoded nearly all of the genes on this medically important portion of the human genome. The research, which involved an international collaboration of 90 scientists from 10 countries, publishes in the online version of the scientific journal Science on April 10, 2003.

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Inactivating a protein that helps regulate the proliferation of vascular cells increases the chance of developing atherosclerosis, a major cause of heart disease, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have discovered.

Vascular vessels endure constant pounding and considerable stresses associated with blood flow. Vascular smooth muscle cells play an important role in the development of blood vessels, providing structural integrity and the ability to dilate and constrict. The

Stanford University Medical Center researchers have identified a protein responsible for ensuring correct skull growth in newborn mice. The protein, called Noggin, inhibits fusion of bony plates in the skull until developmentally appropriate. The scientists hope that Noggin may one day replace surgery as a way to treat premature skull fusion in infants.

“About 1 in 2,000 children has growth plates in their skull that fuse prematurely,” said Michael Longaker, MD. “The brain is rapidly expand

Scientists from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and their colleagues have unraveled some of the fundamental mysteries about the genetic mechanisms that endow the immune system with its life-saving ability to generate specialized antibodies.

Without genetic fine-tuning, antibodies would be relatively ineffective in finding a good match on the surface of viruses, parasites, and other potentially dangerous foreign pathogens. The findings also reveal the workings of a gene mutation process

The sex of newborns is dictated by the X and Y chromosomes – girls are XX whereas boys are XY. However, new research from Northwestern University has shown that normal testis formation depends on two genes — the so-called male-determining SRY gene, found on the Y chromosome 10 years ago, and a gene called Dax1 on the X (female) chromosome.
Based on the findings of the Northwestern study, published in the May online Nature Genetics, it now appears that Dax1 is required at several points in embr