EurekAlert! InContext Modules

Public Release: 29-May-2012
Leading statistician receives national citation award
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute researcher professor Terry Speed was today awarded the 2012 Thomson Reuters Citation Award in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Thomson Reuters

Public Release: 29-May-2012

Blood
Why chemotherapy fails
Tracing the lineage tree of recurring leukemia cells provides evidence for slowly dividing cancer stem cells that resist chemotherapy as the source of the recurrence.

Public Release: 29-May-2012

Nature Genetics
ACRG and BGI report findings from genomics research on recurrent hepatitis B virus integration
ACRG and BGI report findings from genomics research on recurrent hepatitis B virus integration.

Public Release: 25-May-2012

Evidence Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Tongue analysis software uses ancient Chinese medicine to warn of disease
University of Missouri researchers developed computer software that automatically analyzes images of the tongue, one of the measures used to classify the overall physical status of the body, or zheng, in Chinese traditional medicine.

Public Release: 23-May-2012

Science Translational Medicine
Anti-inflammatory drugs may improve survival from severe malaria
A novel anti-inflammatory drug could help to improve survival in the most severe cases of malaria by preventing the immune system from causing irrevocable brain and tissue damage. Walter and Eliza Hall Institute researchers have shown that a new class of anti-inflammatory agents, called IDR (innate defense regulator) peptides, could help to increase survival from severe clinical malaria when used in combination with antimalarial drugs.

Foundation of the National Institutes of Health and Canadian Institutes for Health Research/Grand Challenges in Global Health Research, National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, Victorian Government

Public Release: 23-May-2012

PLOS ONE
TGen-Scottsdale Healthcare conduct whole genome sequencing of rare olfactory neuroblastoma
The Translational Genomics Research Institute and the Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center at Scottsdale Healthcare have conducted whole genome sequencing of a rare nasal tract cancer called olfactory neuroblastoma.

National Foundation for Cancer Research, TGen Foundation

Public Release: 22-May-2012

Science
Sequence it…and they will come!
Rapid DNA sequencing may soon become a routine part of each individual's medical record, providing enormous information previously sequestered in the human genome's 3 billion nucleotide bases. This week's Newsfocus section of the journal Science describes recent advances in sequencing technology using a tiny orifice known as a nanopore.

Public Release: 22-May-2012

International Journal of Obesity
Scientists start explaining Fat Bastard's vicious cycle
Fat Bastard's revelation "I eat because I'm depressed and I'm depressed because I eat" in the Austin Powers film series may be explained by sophisticated neuroscience.

Canadian Diabetes Association, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Canada Foundation for Innovation

Public Release: 22-May-2012

Cladistics
Researchers take virus-tracking software worldwide
A researcher who tracks dangerous viruses around the globe has restructured his innovative tracking software to promote even wider use of the program around the world. Associate Professor Daniel Janies, Ph.D., of the Wexner Medical Center at the Ohio State University, is working with software engineers at the Ohio Supercomputer Center to expand the reach of SUPRAMAP, a web-based application that synthesizes datasets so that researchers can better understand the spread of infectious diseases.

US Army Research Laboratory and Office

Public Release: 22-May-2012

Nature Communications
Sichuan Agricultural University and BGI to unravel the relation between DNA methylomes and obesity
In a highlighted paper published online in Nature Communications, researchers from Sichuan Agricultural University and BGI, the world's largest genomics organization, reported the atlas of DNA methylomes in porcine adipose and muscle tissues, providing a valuable epigenomic source for obesity prediction and prevention as well as boosting the further development of pig as a model animal for human obesity research.

Public Release: 21-May-2012
Researchers aim to assemble the tree of life for all 2 million named species
A new initiative aims to build a tree of life that brings together everything scientists know about how living things are related, from the tiniest bacteria to the tallest tree. Scientists have been building evolutionary trees for more than 150 years. But despite significant progress, there is still no central place where researchers can browse and download the entire tree. Now, a team of researchers aims to make that a reality.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 17-May-2012

PLOS Computational Biology
We can learn a lot from other species
Researchers at the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics and the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute have confirmed the long-held belief that studying the genes we share with other animals is useful. The study, published today in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology, shows how bioinformatics makes it possible to test the fundamental principles on which life science is built.

Public Release: 17-May-2012

PLOS Computational Biology
Resolving the ortholog conjecture
Researchers at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics and the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute have confirmed the long-held conjecture that studying the genes we share with other animals is a viable means of extrapolating information about human biology.

University of Lausanne, Swiss National Science Foundation

Public Release: 17-May-2012

PLOS Computational Biology
Google goes cancer: Researchers use search engine algorithm to find cancer biomarkers
The strategy used by Google to decide which pages are relevant for a search query can also be used to determine which proteins in a patient's cancer are relevant for the disease progression.

Roland Ernst Stiftung fur Gesundheitswesen, MeDDrive TU Dresden, European Union

Public Release: 16-May-2012

Nature
Heliconius butterfly genome explains wing pattern diversity
Pooling funds and putting their heads together, more than 70 scientists from 9 institutions including the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, sequenced the entire genome of the butterfly genus Heliconius, a brightly colored favorite of collectors and scientists since the Victorian era. Their results are published in the prestigious journal, Nature.

Public Release: 16-May-2012
Collaborative study looks for clues on hard-to-treat breast cancer
Some types of breast cancer can be successfully treated with drugs such as tamoxifen, but treatment for a type of breast cancer more common in young and black women is still limited to radiation and general chemotherapy. Called triple negative breast cancer, this type of cancer is the focus of a 20-month, $8.6-million research project that aims to find new diagnostic tools and options for drugs.

US Department of Defense

Public Release: 15-May-2012
Ancient plant-fungal partnerships reveal how the world became green
Prehistoric plants grown in state-of-the-art growth chambers recreating environmental conditions from more than 400 million years ago have shown scientists from the University of Sheffield how soil dwelling fungi played a crucial role in the evolution of plants.

Public Release: 14-May-2012
Understanding why some people have propensity to disease
Frances Sladek of the University of California, Riverside, has received a $1.5 million National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases grant to support a research project that will allow her to examine the effect single nucleotide polymorphisms, the most common type of genetic variation among people, have on a special class of proteins called nuclear receptors that bind DNA and regulate the expression of important genes in response to hormones, vitamins and drugs.

NIH/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases

Public Release: 14-May-2012

Nature Biotechnology
Relative reference: Foxtail millet offers clues for assembling the switchgrass genome
The US Department of Energy is interested in the perennial grass switchgrass as a prospective biofuels feedstock, but the plant genome is complex. The DOE Joint Genome Institute has sequenced plant genomes of related candidate bioenergy crops such as sorghum and the model grass Brachypodium but they last shared a common ancestor with switchgrass more than 20 million years ago. The genome of a much closer switchgrass relative -- foxtail millet -- is described in Nature Biotechnology.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 13-May-2012

Nature Biotechnology
BGI reports the completed sequence of foxtail millet genome
BGI, the world's largest genomics organization, in cooperation with Zhangjiakou Academy of Agricultural Science, has completed the genome sequence and analysis of foxtail millet, the second-most widely planted species of millet.

Public Release: 10-May-2012

American Journal of Human Genetics
Discovery of a gene that causes Joubert Syndrome
C5ORF42 was identified as the gene that causes Joubert Syndrome in a number of families in the Lower St. Lawrence region of Quebec where the causal gene had remained unknown since the initial description of the syndrome in 1969.

Finding Rare Disorders Genes in Canada, Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé

Public Release: 9-May-2012
EMBO welcomes 55 leading life scientists as members
55 life scientists from Europe and around the world were today recognized by EMBO for their excellence in research. 48 of the researchers are from Europe and neighboring countries while seven scientists from Argentina, Australia, South Korea and the United States join as Associate Members. In total, EMBO membership now comprises almost 1,550 life scientists in the international scientific community.

European Molecular Biology Organization

Public Release: 9-May-2012

Nature
New study shows bird color variations speed up evolution
Researchers have found that bird species with multiple plumage color forms within in the same population, evolve into new species faster than those with only one color form, confirming a 60 year-old evolution theory.

Public Release: 3-May-2012

PLOS Computational Biology
Sloppy shipping of human retina leads IU researchers to discover new treatment path for eye disease
Sloppy shipping of a donated human retina to an Indiana University researcher studying a leading cause of vision loss has inadvertently helped uncover a previously undetected mechanism causing the disease. The discovery has led researchers to urge review of how millions of dollars are spent investigating the cause of a type of age-related macular degeneration called choroidal neovascularization.

Public Release: 3-May-2012

Science
Geisel researchers sift through 'junk' to find colorectal cancer clues
Analysis of non-coding "junk" DNA in the Dartmouth lab of Jason Moore has identified switches capable of turning on or off genes associated with the very common cancer.

National Institutes of Health


			HOME DISCLAIMER PRIVACY POLICY TERMS & CONDITIONS CONTACT US TOP Copyright ©2012 by AAAS, the science society.