The findings were published July 11 in Molecular Cell. Telomeres have been compared to the plastic tips at the end of shoelaces because they prevent the ends of chromosomes from fraying and sticking to each other, which scrambles the genetic information and may promote cancer…
Cervical cancer and genital warts are caused by HPV. However, testing for the virus using standard techniques can sometimes give a negative result — in these cases, the condylomas are called ‘virus-negative’ warts…
Logic gates are the means by which computers "compute," as sets of them are combined in different ways to enable computers to ultimately perform tasks like addition or subtraction. In DNA computing, these gates are created by combining different strands of DNA, rather than a series of transistors. However, thus far DNA computation events have typically taken place in a test tube, rather than in living cells. NC State chemist Alex Deiters and graduate student James Hemphill wanted to see if a DNA-based logic gate could detect the presence of specific microRNAs in human cells…
In a new study, published on July 3 in Cell, a team of scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies finds that disrupted micronuclei, which can trigger massive DNA damage on chromosomes, might play an even more active role in carcinogenesis than previously thought. They also found that disrupted micronuclei can be an objective biomarker for the genetic instability common to many solid tumors, including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)…
The results have been published in the online edition of Cell Reports. Cell growth The ability of cells to grow is directly related to the amount of protein synthesized by ribosomes, the intracellular machinery responsible for translating messenger RNA transcribed from DNA into amino acids containing proteins. …
Such a theory was first proposed as an explanation for metastasis more than a century ago. But until now, the theory was unproven in human cancer because genomic differences between cells from the same patient cannot be distinguished…
The researchers found that vitamin C assists enzymes that play a crucial role in releasing the brakes that keep certain genes from becoming activated in the embryo soon after fertilization, when egg and sperm fuse. The discovery might eventually lead to the use of vitamin C to improve results of in vitro fertilization, in which early embryos now are typically grown without the vitamin, and also to treat cancer, in which tumor cells abnormally engage or release these brakes on gene activation, the researchers concluded in a study published June 30, 2013 in the journal Nature. In the near term, stem-cell scientists may begin incorporating vitamin C more systematically into their procedures for growing the most healthy and useful stem cells, according to UCSF stem-cell scientist Miguel Ramalho-Santos, PhD, who led the study. In fact, the unanticipated discovery emerged from an effort to compare different formulations of the growth medium, a kind of nutrient broth used to grow mouse embryonic stem cells in the lab…
source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/27/how-to-be-smart-consumer-about-mislabled-seafood/
source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/27/how-to-be-smart-consumer-about-mislabled-seafood/
source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/26/breakthrough-reverse-vaccine-may-help-combat-type-1-diabetes/