Tequila is the national drink of Mexico and is also hugely popular worldwide. Now a Mexican student has come to England to study the unusual properties of tequila plants.

Postgraduate student Ivan Saldana Oyarzabal, from Guadalajara, which is 50km from the town of Tequila, is studying Agave tequilana and its unusual behaviour at the University of Sussex.

“These agave plants grow in extreme environments and they have a very particular behaviour,” says Ivan. “They are important plants

’Best laid plans of mice and men’

Using both the mouse and human genomes, a computer scientist at Washington University in St. Louis and international collaborators have developed a method for predicting novel genes in both genomes. With the method the scientists have discovered 1,019 novel genes that are found in both man and mouse. The breakthrough is expected to speed up discovery of genes in both genomes as well as those of other mammals. Because it is efficient and cost

A new drug that is biologically linked to Thalidomide destroys cancerous cells by forcing them to commit suicide according to research by a team at St George’s Hospital Medical School, Tooting, London. This work, published today in the journal Cancer Research, adds to the recent study by the same team showing how similar drugs can reduce new blood vessel development, starving growing tumours of nutrients. Both results suggest these new compounds could be powerful anti-cancer agents.

By attem

New research examines why African-American infants are at greater risk

Why is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome more common among African-American infants than in babies of other races?

Research in this month’s issue of Pediatrics suggests the answer might lie in the high prevalence of African-American infants who have died suddenly after being put to sleep in adult beds or on surfaces other than cribs, such as sofas. It urges public health officials to make African American

In their ongoing research on turning adult stem cells isolated from fat into cartilage, Duke University Medical Center researchers have demonstrated that the level of oxygen present during the transformation process is a key switch in stimulating the stem cells to change.

Their findings were presented today (Feb. 2, 2003) at the annual meeting of the Orthopedic Research Society.

Using a biochemical cocktail of steroids and growth factors, the researchers have “retrained” specific

New method for the study and treatment of disease

The application of RNA interference (RNAi) to the study of mammalian biology and disease has the potential to revolutionize biomedical research and speed the development of novel therapeutic strategies.

A series of studies by Greg Hannon at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have revealed a great deal of information about the mechanism of RNAi, as well as how RNAi can be adapted for use in medical research. These and other