Tag Archives: current

Genetic cause of childhood leukemia identified

"We’re in uncharted territory," said study author Kenneth Offit, MD, MPH, Chief of the Clinical Genetics Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. "At the very least this discovery gives us a new window into inherited causes of childhood leukemia. More immediately, testing for this mutation may allow affected families to prevent leukemia in future generations." The mutation was first observed in a family treated at Memorial Sloan-Kettering of which several family members of different generations had been diagnosed with childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). A second, non-related, leukemia-prone family cared for at a different hospital was later found to have the same mutation…

Statins reduce cardiovascular events in coronary artery disease patients with very low LDL cholesterol levels

Dr Nakano said: "Many randomised clinical trials, such as Treating to New Targets (TNT) and PROVE IT-TIMI, have shown that aggressive cholesterol lowering with statins improves clinical outcomes in patients with CAD and high LDL-C levels.1,2 But until now it was not known whether aggressive lipid lowering with statins would also benefit CAD patients with very low LDL-C levels." The current study used the Ibaraki Cardiovascular Assessment Study (ICAS), a registry of 2,238 patients from 12 hospitals in the Ibaraki region of Japan, who between 0 and 1 month underwent percutaneous coronary interventions. Based on serum LDL-C levels at initial presentation participants were classified into three groups: very low (<70 mg/dl, n=214); low (71-100 mg/dl, n=669); and high (>101 mg/dl, n= 1,355). Decisions of whether to prescribe statins or not, as well as the type and dose, were left to the discretion of treating physicians…

Genetics: More than merely a mutated gene

In the current issue of PLoS Genetics, Michigan State University genetic scientists have begun to understand how the rest of the genome interacts with such mutations to cause the differences we see among individuals. "It’s been known for a while that genetic mutations can modify each other’s effects," said Ian Dworkin, MSU associate professor of zoology and co-author of the paper. "And we also know that the subtle differences in an individual’s genome — what scientists call wild type genetic background — also affects how mutations are manifested." Dworkin and Sudarshan Chari, zoology doctoral student and the paper’s lead author, wanted to know how common it was for wild type genetic background to alter the way genetic mutations interact with each other. …

Keeping centrioles in check to ensure proper cell division

Their results are published in the journal Current Biology today. Centrioles — orchestrators of cell division When our cells divide, their genetic material — in the form of X-shaped chromosomes — is aligned in the middle of the cell and segregated to opposite poles of the cell by a spindle of long tubular fibers, so-called microtubules. The structures that organize the two poles of the spindle in animal cells are called centrosomes…

Oxygen – key to most life – decelerates many cancer tumors when combined with radiation therapy

In research examining tissue oxygenation levels and predicting radiation response, UT Southwestern scientists led by Dr. Ralph Mason reported in the June 27 online issue of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine that countering hypoxic and aggressive tumors with an "oxygen challenge" — inhaling oxygen while monitoring tumor response — coincides with a greater delay in tumor growth in an irradiated animal model…

Flip of mitotic spindle has disastrous consequences for epithelial cells

Stowers Institute for Medical Research Associate Investigator Matt Gibson, Ph.D., and his team use simple animal systems like fruit flies and sea anemones to investigate how epithelial cells maintain order while getting jostled by cell division. New findings from his lab published in the July 21 advance online issue of Nature demonstrate that the way the mitotic spindle — the machinery that separates chromosomes into daughter cells during cell division — aligns relative to the surface of the cell layer is essential for the maintenance of epithelial integrity. It also hints at a surprising way that cells initiate a gene expression program seen in invasive cancers when that process goes awry. The study employs live imaging of fruit fly imaginal discs, simple larval tissues that ultimately give rise to the adult wing…

Step closer to custom-building new blood vessels

The results appear online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "In demonstrating the ability to rebuild a microvascular bed in a clinically relevant manner, we have made an important step toward the construction of blood vessels for therapeutic use," says Sharon Gerecht, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Johns Hopkins University Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Physical Sciences-Oncology Center and Institute for NanoBioTechnology. "Our findings could yield more effective treatments for patients afflicted with burns, diabetic complications and other conditions in which vasculature function is compromised." Gerecht’s research group and others had previously grown blood vessels in the laboratory using stem cells, but barriers remain to efficiently producing the vessels and using them to treat patients. For the current study, the group focused on streamlining the new growth process. …