USC researchers uncover mechanism of class- switching in antibodies

A team of scientists from the Keck School of Medicine of USC has, for the first time, described a new, stable DNA structure in both mouse and human cells-one which differs from the standard Watson-and-Crick double helix and plays a critical role in the production of antibodies, or immunoglobulins.
The research will be published online in the journal Nature Immunology this week, and will appear in print in the jou

Logging, illegal hunting, and Ebola caused nearly 60 percent decline since 1983

Scientists say chimps and gorillas now ’critically endangered’

Scientists from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, Princeton University and other organizations have reported in the latest issue of the journal Nature that a dramatic decline of gorillas and chimpanzees is taking place in western equatorial Africa, the last stronghold for great apes on the continent. Ravaged

May lead to sharper picture of human genome as well

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists have used a powerful gene-mapping technique to produce the clearest picture yet of all the genes of an animal – the microscopic worm Caenorhabditis elegans (better known as C. elegans). Scientists believe the same technique may be used to bring the current, somewhat blurry picture of the human genome into sharper focus.

The study, which will be posted on the Nature Genetics website (

For the first time, researchers are characterizing the molecular processes that turn brain cancer deadly, and their work may result in a diagnostic test that can predict patient survival.

The research, by scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center demonstrates that degree of loss of a crucial tumor suppressor gene, the AP-2( transcription factor, correlates with progression of different human gliomas.

For example, researchers found that normal brain tissue,

Researchers report that in laboratory animals, the combination of radiation and the anti-angiogenic drug, endostatin, appears to work synergistically together to stop development of new blood vessels that seek to grow and nourish damaged tumors.
Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center found that the regrowth of new blood vessels was reduced five-fold in mice with implanted squamous cell cancer treated with radiation and endostatin compared to diseased mice that had ra

When Gerald A. Miller first saw the experimental results from the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, he was pretty sure they couldn’t be right. If they were, it meant that some long-held notions about the proton, a primary building block of atoms, were wrong.

But in time, the findings proved to be right, and led physicists to the conclusion that protons aren’t always spherically shaped, like a basketball.

“Some physicists thought they did the experiment wron