NEW YORK (April 2, 2009) — Getting your teenager to drink a chocolate milkshake isn’t something most parents need to worry about. But this is just the approach used in one treatment for anorexia nervosa.
Understanding the tens of thousands of proteins that compose the human proteome has emerged as a key challenge of this century, and research efforts to date have already enabled major advances in drug discovery and understanding basic biology. But many potential avenues have been blocked by lack of information about how the majority of these proteins function.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers have identified a gene that suppresses tumor growth in melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. The finding is reported today in the journal Nature Genetics as part of a systematic genetic analysis of a group of enzymes implicated in skin cancer and many other types of cancer.
A research team at the Scripps Research Institute has obtained the first glimpse of a protein that keeps certain substances, including many drugs, out of cells. The protein, called P-glycoprotein or P-gp for short, is one of the main reasons cancer cells are resistant to chemotherapy drugs. Understanding its structure may help scientists design more effective drugs.
Graduates of the Program in Clinical Effectiveness (PCE), which has trained almost 1,900 physicians to be clinical investigators since 1986, have achieved significant success in receiving grant support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other funders, along with other accomplishments considered key to establishing a research career.
A breakthrough strategy to improve the effectiveness of the only tuberculosis vaccine approved for humans provided superior protection against the deadly disease in a pre-clinical test, report scientists at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston in Nature Medicine‘s Advance Online Publication March 1.
A preliminary report on the administration’s proposed science funding. Who are the winners, and who are the losers? Are there any losers?
Described in an advance, online publication of the journal Nature Biotechnology on February 22, 2009, the team’s general method could be adapted for detecting a wide variety of compounds, including many that are relevant to diagnostic medicine and environmental work.
Researchers have shown that abnormal white blood cells can be present in patients’ blood more than six years prior to the diagnosis of a chronic form of lymphocytic leukemia.
Scientists have identified a small family of lab-made proteins that neutralize a broad range of influenza A viruses, including the H5N1 avian virus, the 1918 pandemic influenza virus and seasonal H1N1 flu viruses.
A hallucinogenic compound found in a plant indigenous to South America and used in shamanic rituals regulates a mysterious protein that is abundant throughout the body, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have discovered.
Almost everyone knows about winter dangers such as broken bones from falls on icy steps, sidewalks or streets. But cold weather also can cause an important, less obvious danger that can affect older people.
People who received a mild electrical current to a motor control area of the brain were significantly better able to learn and perform a complex motor task than those in control groups.
The vast majority of prisoners who could benefit from drug abuse treatment do not receive it, despite two decades of research that demonstrate its effectiveness, according to researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health.