Researchers at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), have developed a new laboratory method that rapidly identifies babies born with inherited forms of severe immune deficiency. The new genetic test, which still must be validated before widespread use, could someday be added to the panel of tests that already screen newborns for a variety of disorders.
Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers have demonstrated that a gel applied in the vagina provides protection from both the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the herpes simplex Virus. The study, presented at the 12th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, is the first to show that a gel can retain anti-viral activity within the human vagina.
A cellular enzyme appears to play a crucial role in the manufacture of a protein needed for long-term memory, according to a team of researchers led by scientists at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health. The protein is known as mBDNF, which stands for mature brain-derived neurotrophic factor. In an earlier study, another team of NICHD researchers had shown that mBDNF is essential for the formation of long-term memory, the ability to remember things for longer than a day.
For the first time, scientists have replicated hepatitis C virus (HCV) in the laboratory. The ability to replicate HCV in cell culture will allow researchers to better study the life cycle and biology of this virus and to test potential antiviral compounds, which may lead to new therapies for the liver disease that results from infection with HCV. Scientists at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), conducted the study, which appears in the Feb. 15, 2005 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The RTI International researcher credited with discovering the cancer-fighting drug Taxol is calling for greater investment in natural products research following the discovery reported last month that Taxol slows the spread of Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Mansukh C. Wani, who with his co-investigator the late Dr. Monroe E. Wall identified and published the structure of Taxol in 1971, said the scientific community is “simply not doing enough research related to natural compounds and as a consequence could be delaying discoveries.”
Treatments for mood and anxiety disorders are thought to work, in part, by helping patients control the stresses in their lives. A new study in rats by National Institutes of Health (NIH) grantees provides insight into the brain mechanisms likely involved. When it deems a stressor controllable, an executive hub in the front of the brain quells an alarm center deep in the brainstem, preventing the adverse behavioral and physiological effects of uncontrollable stress.
A highly sensitive post-mortem test could help scientists more accurately determine if a person died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a human neurological disorder caused by the same class of infectious proteins that trigger mad cow disease, according to a new study supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The finding opens the possibility that such testing might be refined in the future so it can be used to detect prion disease in living people and animals before the onset of symptoms.
Someday in the not-too-distant future patients may visit a doctor’s office, provide a sample of saliva or blood, and know in minutes if they are prone to heart disease, gum disease, or cancer. There would be no sending samples to off-site labs for analysis and waiting days to obtain the vital information. A five-pound, hand-held medical diagnostic device being developed at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Sandia National Laboratories promises to be this ticket to better health for millions of Americans.
The final National Institutes of Health (NIH) rule on Enhanced Public Access to NIH Research Information is wasteful of federal research dollars and a missed opportunity to take advantage of available technology and existing efforts, according to a group of the nation’s leading not-for-profit medical and scientific publishers. The final rule ignores significant free access policies already existing in the not-for-profit publishing community that offer more cost-effective public access to the science in their journals.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced today a new policy designed to accelerate the public’s access to published articles resulting from NIH-funded research. The policy — the first of its kind for NIH — calls on scientists to release to the public manuscripts from research supported by NIH as soon as possible, and within 12 months of final publication.
Acute viral infections, including smallpox, may be halted by aiming a drug not at the virus but at the cellular machinery it needs to spread from cell to cell — an approach that might eliminate the problem of antiviral drug resistance, report researchers supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The scientists say their finding, made using lab-grown monkey kidney cells and a mouse model of smallpox infection, turns the usual approach to fighting viral infections on its head. By developing drugs targeted to the unchanging chemical pathways used in normal cell processes and co-opted by viruses, the investigators say it might be possible to battle acute viral infections in a way that prevents the virus from mutating its way around a drug attack.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced today a new supplemental ethics regulation that addresses the concerns raised by the activities of some of its employees, particularly regarding outside consulting with the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. The regulation was developed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), with the concurrence of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), the federal agency that prescribes executive branch-wide ethics standards.
Duke University neurobiologist Erich Jarvis and a team of 28 other neuroscientists have proposed sweeping changes to the terminology associated with the brain structures of birds–a century-old nomenclature the researchers consider outdated and irrelevant to birds’ true brainpower.
A large clinical trial of a novel HIV vaccine has begun enrolling volunteers at sites in North America, South America, the Caribbean and Australia. Organizers are seeking 1,500 participants. The trial is co-funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. Inc. Merck developed the experimental vaccine to stimulate HIV-specific cellular immunity, which prompts the body to produce T cells that kill HIV-infected cells. In previous smaller trials, this vaccine was found to be safe and to induce cellular immune responses against HIV in more than half of volunteers.