Scientists in the Center for Human Genomics at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions have discovered a gene that “may play an important role in prostate cancer susceptibility in both African-American men and men of European descent.”

The 31-member team reports in the October issue of Nature Genetics that mutations in the MSR1 (for Macrophage Scavenger Receptor 1) gene were found in 4.4 percent of Caucasians who had prostate cancer, compared to 0.8 p

A pediatrician at Brenner Children’s Hospital has developed an efficient way to help educate health care professionals on herbal and dietary supplements via the Internet, according to a study published in the September issue of Academic Medicine.

Kathi Kemper, M.D., a pediatrician at Brenner Children’s Hospital, worked with physicians from the Longwood Herbal Task Force to develop a series of e-mails containing information and questions about various herbal and dietary supplements.

Researchers discover gene in cancer-causing “STAT” family encodes two -not one-functional proteins

When the Human Genome Project first revealed last year that humans possess only an estimated 30,000 genes – fives times more than a mustard weed plant – the fact that many genes code for more than just one protein assumed greater importance. Such protein variations, researchers reasoned, must play an even larger role in contributing to the remarkable complexity of human beings.

Many cancer patients generate immune cells capable of specifically attacking their tumors, but the cells rarely do, in fact, target a patient’s cancer. What prevents these potentially helpful cells from taking action? And is there anything that might be done to unleash them?

The attack cells – known as cytolytic T cells – are prevented from acting by a second set of immune cells called regulatory T cells, according to a new study from investigators at The Wistar Institute. The research

In findings they believe are fundamentally important to both biology and medicine, chemists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have shown experimentally for the first time that proteins can behave differently inside cells than when taken out of those cells and studied in test tubes.

“For 40 years, we thought we could learn most everything about proteins by studying them in water, but this work shows we are missing important observations by looking at them just in water or oth

Research at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) has revealed that certain chemical ingredients of gasoline, jet fuel and other solvents may pose a greater health hazard than first thought. Scientists at the OHSU Center for Research on Occupational and Environmental Toxicology (CROET) have shown that a benzene derivative damages the nervous system. In fact, the substance is much more active than non-benzene analogs already known to cause peripheral nerve damage (loss of limb sensation and muscl