SUNDAY - May 6, 2007---------------------------- Previous Week News Alerts / Return to Today's News Alerts

Petfood Recall Widens.
CA major pet food recall has expanded again as manufacturer Menu Foods Income Fund revealed evidence of cross-contamination by some cat and dog food pulled since March. Wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate are also used in human foods such as bread and pasta, but there is "no evidence that it has ended up in baby food or for that matter any other human food as an ingredient," said FDA Assistant Commissioner for Food Protection David Acheson.

Breastfeeding, Omega-3 Fatty Acids Help New Moms Depression.
Breastfeeding and the good fats in Omega-3 fatty acids help new moms fight depression, according to a new article published in the International Breastfeeding Journal by a University of New Hampshire researcher. Depression in new mothers is common in many cultures, affecting anywhere from 10 percent to 20 percent of postpartum women. In some high-risk populations, the percentage can even be as high as 40 percent or 50 percent. Since depression has devastating effects on both mother and baby, it's vital that it be identified and treated promptly.

Gene Helps Tell Self from Non-Self During Neural Development.
The dendritic limbs of developing nerve cells must organize themselves to cover as much space as they can evenly and efficiently. To complicate matters, they must also take care to avoid overlapping with their sister dendrites. Three groups of researchers now report how a vast assortment of proteins produced by Dscam steers sister dendrites away from one another. Cell surface proteins produced by Dscam help guide developing dendrites and keep them from bumping into and overlapping with their sister dendrites, thus exhibiting self-avoidance.

UCSF Center for Study of Primary Immune Disease in Children.
This month, the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) will open one of only a small number of centers in the world dedicated to the diagnosis, treatment and cure of children suffering from primary immune disorders such as the famed “bubble boy” disease. The center will be led by one of the world’s leading authorities on the debilitating and sometimes deadly inherited conditions that can rob sufferers of the ability to fight off infection.

Social Behavior Differs in Children With Family History of Autism.
The baby brothers and sisters of autistic children do not seek emotional cues from adults, or respond to them, as often as other toddlers do, suggests new research from the University of California, San Diego. High-risk toddlers differed in almost every element of social referencing, the researchers found: Though they sought emotional information from adults as quickly as the low-risk toddlers, they did so about 30 percent less frequently, and they did not respond to the adult’s information in ways that were consistent with the adult’s reaction.

Mother’s little helpers: the immune cells that support pregnancy.
Scientists at the UK'a Medical Research Council’s (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) had already shown that regulatory T cells, cells which regulate our immune system to prevent it overreacting, play an important role in preventing an immunological attack of fetuses in utero. Now they have demonstrated that these cells move into the uterus every 4 days in the time leading up to mice’s fertility peaks to prepare the host immune system for a potential pregnancy.

Molecular Melodies - Listen to the Sounds of Life.
It's not quite Beethoven's 5th, but a pair of molecular biologists has transformed the complex sequence of a protein into music. Reporting online 3 May in Genome Biology, the duo assigned a musical note to each amino acid--the building blocks of proteins. The team polished the process by assigning quarter, eighth, and half notes to the three codons that encode each amino acid. Besides being music to a biologist's ears, the researchers hope the minisymphonies will aid vision-impaired scientists and entice a new generation to molecular genetics. To hear the sound of your favorite protein, click here; to enter your own, click here.



SATURDAY - May 5, 2007---------------------------- Previous Week News Alerts / Return to Today's News Alerts

New Analysis Reverses Thinking on Estrogen and Alzheimer's.
Contradicting earlier findings of an association between the use of estrogen and the later development of Alzheimer's disease, a deeper analysis of the evidence that led to that conclusion has found the opposite, reported Victor W. Henderson, M.D., M.S., of Stanford University, and colleagues.

In Utero Exposure to Valproate Lowers IQ.
Researchers' findings suggest that valproate, which is known to carry a high risk of anatomical birth defects, may also adversely affect neurologic development, and should not be the drug of first choice in women of childbearing age, advised Kimford J. Meador, M.D., of the University of Florida in Gainseville.

Vaccine Prevents Prion Disease In Mice.
Prion disease spreads when an animal eats the body parts of other animals contaminated with prions. The disease causes dementia and abnormal limb movements. Prion is a protein that is also an infectious agent. The proteins are so similar to proteins found normally that the immune system does not fight them off. To develop a vaccine that would stimulate the mice's immune system, researchers attached prion proteins to a genetically modified strain of Salmonella.

One Genetic Mutation Heals Another.
Mutations in the laminin beta 3 (LAMB3) gene cause the blistering skin disease epidermolysis bullosa (EB). In the May 1st issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Marcel Jonkman and colleagues from the University of Groningen in The Netherlands describe 2 unrelated patients with junctional EB who underwent revertant mosaicism, a spontaneously occurring process in which mutations at second sites within the LAMB3 gene in skin cells known as keratinocytes were capable of correcting the inherited mutation, restoring LAMB3 protein expression to normal, and triggered areas of previously affected skin to return to a clinically healthy state.

Sperm Mutation Linked To Autism.
Earlier this year, UI researchers and collaborators were part of an international team that identified, among other findings, deletions in a gene called neurexin 1, which caused two cases of autism in one family. The mutation is a germline mosaic. occurring only in the father's sperm cells when he himself was in gestation. As result, the father did not have autism, but his two children, both daughters, inherited from him a chromosome that was missing a small piece of DNA that contained neurexin 1. The daughters now have autism.

Damaged Gene Gives Insight Into Causes Of Mental Illness.
Working with families with a high incidence of mental illness, scientists have identified the DISC1 gene linking it to schizophrenia, manic depression (bipolar affective disorder) and major depression. The gene was also found to be essential for brain signalling and plays a key role in learning, memory and mood. To further their findings, experts looked at the behaviour of mice with two types of damage in the gene. The results suggest that one responded better to antipsychotics, used to treat schizophrenia while the other responded better to anti-depressants, used to treat mood disorders.

A Noninvasive Means To Determine Fetal Lung Maturity.
University of California San Francisco researchers performed high resolution MRS on 15 amniotic fluid samples for evaluation of fetal lung maturity. Fetuses between 34 and 40 weeks gestation were analyzed using trimethysilylpropionic acid (TSP) as a reference standard. "Currently the standard for determining fetal lung maturity involves obtaining amniotic fluid and evaluating the fluid for the surfactant to albumin (SA) ratio. The amniotic fluid is obtained via amniocentesis, an invasive procedure with risks including infection and preterm labor," said May Yong, MD, lead author. The full results will be presented on May 10, 2007 during the American Roentgen Ray Society Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL.



FRIDAY - May 4, 2007---------------------------- Previous Week News Alerts / Return to Today's News Alerts

Prenatal Toxicity Linked To Immune Dysfunctions In Later Life.
A Cornell researcher and his wife have conducted the first comprehensive review of later-life diseases that develop in people who were exposed to environmental toxins or drugs either in the womb or as infants. They have found that most of the diseases have two things in common: They involve an imbalanced immune system and exaggerated inflammatory reactions (at the cellular level).

Cat Hair Poses An Allergy Risk, Particularly For Young Children.
A Cats and cat allergens in the home clearly raise the risk of the allergic sensitization of children up to the age of two.  For older children, however, the influence of the environment at home on the development of cat allergen sensitization decreases.  This is the conclusion reached by scientists from the GSF – National Research Center for Environment and Health (GSF), Helmholtz-Association, when they evaluated the data of more than 2,000 children from Leipzig and Munich.

Fungus Molecules May Protect Infants From Future Allergies.
Environmental health scientists at the University of Cincinnati (UC) say they have confirmed what other scientists have only suspected: early-life exposure to certain indoor fungal components (molecules) can help build stronger immune systems, and may protect against future allergies. “The immune system’s protective effects only appear to occur when there are high levels of microbial exposure,” she explains. “Cleaner environments do not have enough microbial components to trigger the immune system response.”

Researchers Find New Class of Nontoxic Cancer Treatments.
In a study published in the April 30 issue of the academic journal Chemistry & Biology, UK pharmaceutical sciences graduate student Abby Ho mentored by assistant professor Kyung-Bo Kim and ophthalmology and visual sciences assistant professor Royce Mohan describe a compound that acts directly on LMP2, a component of the immune proteasome variant that has been identified abundantly expressed in certain types of tumors, including some prostate cancers. The compound, dubbed UK-101, inhibits LMP2 while not attacking normal cells, indicating that it could be an effective cancer treatment that does not produce the kinds of unpleasant side effects reported by many patients currently treated with broadly acting proteasome inhibitors and chemotherapeutics.

Master Regulatory Gene Of Epithelial Stem Cells Identified.
The skin's ability to replace the tissue it sloughs off is controlled by a variety of genes. A new study from Harvard Medical School published in the May 4 issue of Cell, however, identifies a "master regulator" of this process not only for skin, but for many epithelial tissues including breast, prostate, and urogenital tract.

DNA Mutation Causes Heart Disease in Whites.
A treasure hunt for genes has found that up to three-quarters of people of European descent have DNA that raises their risk for heart disease - and these genes are close to a stretch of DNA linked to diabetes. The findings may help explain why so many people have heart disease even if they do not have clear risk factors such as smoking, high cholesterol or high blood pressure.

Adult Stem/progenitor Cells Repair Of Damaged Brain.
New studies in the laboratory of Dr. Darwin J. Prockop, Director of Tulane University's Center for Gene Therapy, are shedding light on the previously mysterious mechanism through which even relatively small amounts of stem/progenitor cells taken from a patient's own bone marrow enhance repair of damaged tissues.



THURSDAY - May 3, 2007---------------------------- Previous Week News Alerts / Return to Today's News Alerts

Babies Overfed to Meet Flawed Ideal.
New research is beginning to confirm what many mothers have long suspected - that the most commonly used growth charts, based on babies fed high-protein formula milk, wrongly classify lean but healthy babies as underweight. What's more, by encouraging mothers to overfeed their babies, the charts may be setting perfectly healthy children on the path to obesity.

Mini DNA Replicator Could Benefit World's Poor.
A device which has no moving parts and costs just $10 to make, has been developed to replicate DNA. It runs polymerase chain reactions (PCRs), to generate billions of identical copies of a DNA strand, in as little as 20 minutes. This is much faster than the machines currently in use, which take several hours. The device shows promise for a variety of tests, including monitoring levels of HIV virus in a person's body or diagnosing tuberculosis.

New Clue to Longevity.
Caenorhabditis elegans roundworms have shown that SMK-1 might regulate another gene to help lean worms live longer. Using RNA interference, scientists revealed that a gene called PHA-4, which regulates gut development in the roundworm embryo, is essential to diet-induced longevity. Without the PHA-4 gene, diet-restricted worms lived as long as control worms eating a normal diet, while diet-restricted worms with the PHA-4 gene lived about 62% longer than controls.

Infant Mortality Rate Edges Down to New Low.
The 2004 figure marked a decline of about 10 percent from a decade earlier and continued a long-term downward trend over several decades that experts attribute to factors such as improved prenatal care and greater awareness among women to avoid behaviors such as drinking and smoking while pregnant.

Restoring Memory in Mice.
The results of new experiments suggest that the term “memory loss” may be an inaccurate description of the kinds of mental deficits associated with neurodegenerative diseases. “The memories are still there, but they are rendered inaccessible by neural degeneration,” said the senior author Li-Huei Tsai, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."

Gene Analysis of Ethnic Differences to Chemotherapy.
Three inherited alterations, known as polymorphisms, in the gene that codes for epidermal growth factor receptor, or EGFR, are known to be involved in several types of cancer, including more than half of lung cancers. Researchers found that the three inherited polymorphisms were less common in healthy people from Japan and Taiwan than in healthy people of European, African or Mexican descent regardless of whether the East Asians lived in Asia or in the United States.

When Smell Cells Fail They Call In Stem Cell Reserves.
The only nerve cells in the body to run directly from the brain to the outside world, olfactory cells are under constant assault from harsh chemicals that one might happen to catch a whiff of by accident, risking damage or death. After exposure to toxic chemicals, scientists discovered that newly grown cells, both nerve and non-nerve, grew from HBCs—a population of cells not previously known for repair abilities.

WEDNESDAY - May 2, 2007---------------------------- Previous Week News Alerts / Return to Today's News Alerts

Genes Makes Racing Dogs Fast.
Racing whippets that carry one copy of a mutated gene are among the fastest racers, but those that carry two copies are unattractively bulky and usually destroyed by breeders, researchers say. The gene controls a muscle protein called myostatin. Last month, the same researchers reported that a gene called IGF1 was responsible for making small dogs small. Now, after observing well muscled whippets, a breed of Belgian blue cattle and certain pigs, the team knew that this muscling came from a mutation in the myostatin gene.

Bipolar Disorder - Prognosis Worse if Undiagnosed in Childhood.
When symptoms arise before age 12, a bipolar child waits an average of 17 years before accurate diagnosis and therapy. Those who develop symptoms as teenagers wait nearly 12 years for treatment. In contrast, men and women who develop bipolar symptoms after the age of 18 typically wait 2 to 4 years before treatment. These results highlight the importance of recognizing bipolar symptoms in children, and not attributing their problems to depression or ADHD.

Poultry in Indiana Contaminated With Melamine.
U.S. officials found melamine in feed at an Indiana chicken farm, a chemical used in plastics and fertilizer, that so far has been found in pet food and now livestock and poultry feed. Last week, the government announced a poultry feed mill in Missouri also may have purchased contaminated feed.

Scientists Find Pancreatic Cancer Clues.
A study published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, examined specimens from 65 patients with ductal adenocarcinoma of the pancreas and 42 with chronic pancreatitis. "We have identified - we believe for the first time - a global expression pattern of miRNAs that can differentiate ductal adenocarcinomas of the pancreas from normal pancreas and chronic pancreatitis with 95 percent accuracy," the study declared.

Smoking in Pregnancy = Long-Lasting Impact on Fetal Heart.
Scientists have found that adult offspring of laboratory rats who were exposed to nicotine prenatally showed clear signs of heart dysfunction. "Our study shows that prenatal...nicotine has significant impact on cardiac function of adult offspring," said Dr. Lubo Zhang. "The finding supports a very exciting area of research called 'fetal programming of cardiovascular disease.' This occurs not only with nicotine but with many other insults that may occur during fetal development."

Male Ducks Compete in "Arms Race" for Pregnancies.
Female ducks have corkscrew-shaped oviducts, with plenty of potential dead-ends. Male ducks also have a spiraled system, but it twists in the opposite, counterclockwise direction. Only if the female is relaxed and cooperative can the male's sperm get anywhere near the unfertilized eggs, researchers suggest. "We can expect that these types of antagonistic traits are probably widespread and are likely part of the reproductive interactions of all sorts of animals, including humans," Brennan said.

Doctors Test Gene Therapy to Treat Blindness.
A group from Moorfields Eye Hospital and University College London (UCL) has operated on a small number of young adults with Leber's congenital amaurosis, a type of inherited childhood blindness caused by a single abnormal gene. The new experimental procedure involves inserting normal copies of the faulty RPE65 gene into cells of the retina - the light-sensitive layer of cells at the back of the eye. Using a harmless virus as a vector, the virus transcends the retinal cell membrane bringing the RPE65 gene to the retinal nucleus.



TUESDAY - May 1, 2007---------------------------- Previous Week News Alerts / Return to Today's News Alerts

Remedies: Dark Chocolate Similar to Blood Pressure Drugs.
A diet rich in fruits and vegetables is healthy partly because plants contain chemical substances called polyphenols that help control blood pressure. In Western countries, the major sources of dietary polyphenols are tea and chocolate, but studies of their ties to blood pressure have mixed results. The magnitude of the effect of eating three and a half ounces of dark chocolate a day was clinically significant, comparable to that of beta-blockers like atenolol, known by the brand name Tenormin, or propranolol, known as Inderal.

Filler in Animal Feed Is Open Secret in China.
As American food safety regulators head to China to investigate how a chemical made from coal found its way into pet food that killed dogs and cats in the United States, workers in this heavily polluted northern city openly admit that the substance is routinely added to animal feed as a fake protein.

Novel Two-Step Mechanism Ensures that All Cilia Beat in Unison.
Cilia, tiny hair-like structures that propel mucus out of airways, have to agree on the direction of the fluid flow to get things moving. Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies discovered a novel two-step mechanism that ensures that all cilia beat in unison. Their study, published in Nature, reveals that during early embryonic development, cilia point more or less in the general direction of the body's back end and start creating a weak flow. During the following refinement phase, all cilia get in line and trim their sails to the prevailing winds.

The Handy Way of Speaking.
Researchers have identified the specific social contexts of hand and vocal means of communications amongst chimpanzee - and perhaps humans. Bonobos and chimpanzees scream when alarmed, threatened, or intimidated; and both species use a silent pout-face to express an interest in food. Hand gestures, however, were almost as varied as two different human languages, with signs differing not only between the two species but also between groups of the same species.

Small Organism, No Small Feat.
Adding some complexity to the seemingly simple life of a single-celled organism, researchers have found that a green alga uses snippets of RNA to control its genes. This finding, the first "microRNAs" outside of the multicellular world of plants and animals, indicates that simple organisms regulate genes similarly to more advanced life forms - like us.

Woman's Age at First Period May Influence Offspring's Height.
Researchers from the Medical Research Council and University of Cambridge, studied the association between mother's age at first menstruation, adult body size and obesity risk, and her children's growth and obesity risk in 6,009 children in the UK. The children of women whose periods started early had faster growth, characterised by rapid weight gain - particularly during infancy, which led to taller childhood stature. However this rapid growth also resulted in earlier pubescence and therefore shorter adult stature as well as an increased risk for childhood and adult obesity.

Planarians Offer Insight Into Germ Cell Development.
In a new study published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Newmark and his colleagues at the U. of I. report that planarians share some important characteristics with mammals. They may help scientists tease out the methods by which germ cells (sex cells) are formed and maintained.



MONDAY - April 30, 2007---------------------------- Previous Week News Alerts / Return to Today's News Alerts

South Korean Team Cleared in Cloned Wolf Probe.
South Korean scientists, whose reputation has been tainted by fraudulent stem cell studies, committed errors in a paper on producing the world's first cloned grey wolves but did not manipulate data, an investigative panel said on Friday. The error in the team's work was limited to a data entry in one table, but an investigation of lab records and computer files indicated it was an honest mistake and not an attempt at fraud.

Sperm Activates Egg with New Protein.
When the membranes of the sperm head and egg start fusing and create an opening between them, the sperm cell releases proteins through the opening that activate the egg. This allows the sperm cell to further enter the egg and mix its material with that of the egg, thus creating one cell - the zygote. Egg activation steps are well known, but what's not clear is which molecules initiate the process. A new protein now appears key in the first stages of egg activation. The protein is called postacrosomal sheath WW domain-binding protein (PAWP). Without PAWP, sperm cells are unable to activate eggs.

Study Says Some Twins Are Half-Identical.
Researchers at Kings College in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., are looking at the DNA of nearly 25 sets of twins to prove that, in addition to fraternal and identical twins, there are also half-identical twins, the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader reported Wednesday. Identical twins are formed when a single fertilized egg splits in half. Fraternal twins form when two eggs are fertilized by separate sperm cells. Half-identical twins are formed when an unfertilized egg splits in half and each half is fertilized by one sperm.

Concerns Over Synthetic Fragrances in Breast Milk.
Record levels of synthetic fragrances from everyday cleaning, deodorising and beauty products have been found in breast milk of American women. Kurunthachalam Kannan from New York state's Department of Health and his colleagues found levels of synthetic musks in breast milk from 39 women were five times those found in European women nearly a decade ago.

Mouse May Explain Why Alcohol Increases Breast Cancer Risk.
For the first time, researchers at the University of Mississippi Medical Center used a laboratory mouse model to mimic the development of human alcohol-induced breast cancer. They found that: 1) moderate alcohol consumption significantly increased tumor size of breast cancer in mice 2) alcohol caused a 1.28-fold increase in tumor microvessel (blood vessel) density 3) alcohol intake did not cause significant changes in the body weight of the mice.

Tricky Spelling Drains the Brain.
Spelling tricky words such as "yacht" is no day at the beach, it seems. New brain-scan images have shown how our minds struggle when the sound of the word does not closely match its spelling. The scans show that spelling irregular words requires more brainpower than simple ones. Specifically, areas of the brain that process word meaning show greater activity. Researchers say their findings could prompt schools to change how they teach children language.

Lost Memories Could Be Restored by 'Rewiring' Brain.
It may be possible to restore lost memories with drugs that trigger the natural "rewiring" of brain cells, a new study in mice suggests. The findings could lead to new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases in humans associated with impaired learning and memory loss, such as dementia, the researchers say.