news 2012

Scientists have discovered a rare genetic mutation that increases the risk of Alzheimer's disease. The international team, led by researchers at the UCL Institute of Neurology, studied data from more than 25,000 people and found a link between a rare variant of the TREM2 gene - which is known to play a role in the immune system - and a higher risk of Alzheimer's.

With as many as a 30 percent of pregnant women in Australia experiencing a caesarean birth, a study led by researchers from the University of Sydney aims to determine if there is a link between high levels of lactate in amniotic fluid and difficult labours which may end with a caesarean section. Lead investigator Sally Tracy , Professor of Midwifery at the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Sydney, says like any other muscle in our body, it appears that the female uterus produces lactic acid when it is tired.

A new study by researchers at Imperial College London has identified a way in which Salmonella bacteria, which cause gastroenteritis and typhoid fever, counteract the defence mechanisms of human cells. One way in which our cells fight off infections is by engulfing the smaller bacterial cells and then attacking them with toxic enzymes contained in small packets called lysosomes.

Drinking one or two glasses of wine a week during pregnancy can influence a child's IQ, a new study led by Oxford and Bristol university researchers suggests. Lead researcher Ron Gray from the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford said: 'This is a complex study but the message is simple: even moderate amounts of alcohol during pregnancy can have an effect on future child intelligence.

Prenatal and childhood exposure to flame retardant compounds are linked to poorer attention, fine motor coordination and IQ in school-aged children, a finding by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley's School of Public Health, that adds to growing health concerns over a chemical prevalent in U.S. households.

CHAMPAIGN, lll. With a mate and a nest to protect, the male threespined stickleback is a fierce fish, chasing and biting other males until they go away. Now researchers are mapping the genetic underpinnings of the stickleback's aggressive behavior. Armed with tools that allow them to see which genes are activated or deactivated in response to social encounters, a team from the University of Illinois has identified broad patterns of gene activity that correspond to aggression in this fish.

Understanding how any disease progresses is one of the first and most important steps towards finding treatments to stop it. This has been the case for such brain-degenerating conditions as Alzheimer's disease. Now, after several years of incremental study, researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania have been able to piece together important steps in how Parkinson's disease (PD) spreads from cell to cell and leads to nerve cell death.

PA 324/12 Researchers from Nottingham have played their part in the discovery of a rare genetic mutation that increases the risk of Alzheimer's disease, in a study with major implications for understanding the causes of the disease. The international team, which involved a research team led by Kevin Morgan , Professor of Human Genomics and Molecular Genetics at The University of Nottingham, used data from more than 25,000 people to link a rare variant of the TREM2 gene — which is known to play a role in the immune system — to a higher risk of Alzheimer's.

An international research team including scientists from the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine has discovered a link between a mutation in an immune system gene and Alzheimer's disease. "This discovery provides an increasingly firm link between brain inflammation and increased risk for Alzheimer's," said Peter St George-Hyslop , director of U of T's Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases.

Stanford Report, November 14, 2012 A new study from Stanford's Department of Chemistry reveals that the cell wall structure of Staphylococcus aureus , a bacterium responsible for a broad range of diseases, depends on growth stage and nutrient availability. Chemistry graduate student Xiaoxue Zhou had carried out an experiment to find out how antibiotics affect cell wall structure in Staphylococcus aureus , a bacterium responsible for a slew of ailments from food poisoning to boils and abscesses.

A Cornell plant virologist, an alumna and three Weill Cornell Medical College researchers have each received grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative. One grant awarded to Jeremy Thompson in the Department of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology will fund a project that takes advantage of new technology to rapidly determine the structure of RNA in viruses, which may lead to a new method for developing virus-resistant plants.

Our study indicates the considerable potential of sequencing for the rapid identification of MRSA outbreaks" —Professor Sharon Peacock, lead author from the University of Cambridge For the first time, researchers have used DNA sequencing to help bring an infectious disease outbreak in a hospital to a close.

Headshaking syndrome is when a horse shakes or jerks its head uncontrollably for no apparent reason. There are striking clinical similarities between facial pain syndromes in people, most notably trigeminal neuralgia, and headshaking in horses. Although some progress has been made towards both diagnosing and treating the condition in horses, the pathology of the disease remains unknown and further research is needed.

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have begun work on developing the ability of sugars to block a protein that causes damage in the brain in Alzheimer's patients. Jerry Turnbull and his team, from the University's Institute of Integrative Biology , discovered that a family of long chain sugars, called Heparan Sulphates (HS), which are found in nearly every cell of the body, can prevent the formation of small proteins that form clumps in the brain.

An international team of scientists, including researchers at Durham University, have revealed the genetic code of pigs for the first time, providing new insights into their domestication and the movements of early humans. Researchers compared the genome or genetic make-up of domestic pigs with those of wild boars - from which domestic pigs are descended.

The cancer-causing form of the gene Myc alters the metabolism of mitochondria, the cell's powerhouse, making it dependent on the amino acid glutamine for survival. In fact, 40 percent of all "hard-to-treat" cancers have a mutation in the Myc gene. Accordingly, depriving cells of glutamine selectively induces programmed cell death in cells overexpressing mutant Myc .

Scientists at the University of Sheffield are investigating an enzyme - known to be responsible for kidney failure - to discover how it can be targeted and blocked before serious problems occur. The new research could pave the way for new drugs capable of halting the progression of kidney disease - a gradual irreversible damage to kidney function, for which there is no cure.

A Yale team of researchers has looked at the cost of seeking out-of-network medical care, and whether private insurance companies are transparent about the cost. They sought to determine the proportion of privately insured adults using out-of-network physicians, the prevalance of involuntary out-of-network visits due to medical emergencies, and whether patients experienced problems with cost transparency.

Researchers at King's College London have uncovered a protein required by cancer cells to spread to other parts of the body, highlighting it as a potential target for future treatments to prevent secondary cancers (metastases). Funded by Cancer Research UK, and published in the Journal of Cell Biology , the study looked at how cancer cells form new tumours in other parts of the body.

As they develop, vertebrate embryos form vertebrae in a sequential, time-controlled way. Scientists have determined previously that this process of body segmentation is controlled by a kind of "clock," regulated by the oscillating activity of certain genes within embryonic cells. But questions remain about how precisely this timing system works.