Progress in battle against life-threatening acute allergy

07-Aug-2006 - Up to 15% of the population has to contend at some time with Anaphylaxis: a suddenly serious allergic reaction that can be life-threatening. Researchers from the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) connected to Ghent University have uncovered mechanisms that underlie this ...

New test predicts dementia 20 years ahead

07-Aug-2006 - The dementia risk score is a novel approach for the prediction of the risk of late-life dementia in people of middle-age, according to new research from Karolinska Institutet. Dr. Miia Kivipelto and colleagues conducted a population-based study called CAIDE (Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Aging and ...

DNA to the Defense: Genomic expansion and diversification in a human parasite allow it to evade host detection

04-Aug-2006 - A team of scientists headed by Dr. Sara Melville at the University of Cambridge has shown that the parasite known to cause African sleeping sickness has evolved an unusual chromosomal structure as a result of environmental adaptation. In this parasite, the chromosomes are highly enriched in ...

Scripps Research Scientists Successfully Test New Anti-Obesity Vaccine

Prototype Slows Weight Gain, Reduces Fat in Animal Models

02-Aug-2006 - In what may be the first published breakthrough of its kind in the global battle against obesity, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have developed an anti-obesity vaccine that significantly slowed weight gain and reduced body fat in animal models. The study is being published in an ...

New genetic model for Parkinson's disease

01-Aug-2006 - Researchers at the Karolinska Institute are homing in on mechanisms that may explain one set of causes for Parkinson's disease. In mice they have mimicked disturbances of mitochondria thought to be one cause of disease. By genetic means the disturbance of mitochondria were directed to those nerve ...

New and improved right to the last drop

Trapping enzymes in silica beads

28-Jul-2006 - Biomolecules have become almost ubiquitous in laundry and personal care products. Biological washing powders usually contain enzymes to help digest stains while the latest shampoos and conditioners often use proteins to add shine and thickness to hair. Now, researchers writing in the latest issue ...

Galapagos awarded EUR1.8 million grant to accelerate drug discovery

27-Jul-2006 - Galapagos NV has been awarded a EUR1.8 million grant from the Flanders government through the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT). The grant supports the development of biological models for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis, both core ...

DOE JGI decodes DNA of growth-promoting fungus

26-Jul-2006 - The DNA sequence of Laccaria bicolor, a fungus that forms a beneficial symbiosis with trees and inhabits one of the most ecologically and commercially important microbial niches in North American and Eurasian forests, has been determined by the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute ...

Rice scientists unveil 'nanoegg'

Asymmetric particles focus light in unique way

25-Jul-2006 - Contact: Jade BoydResearchers at Rice University's Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP) have unveiled the "nanoegg," the latest addition to their family ultrasmall, light-focusing particles. A cousin of the versatile nanoshell, nanoeggs are asymmetric specks of matter whose striking optical ...

Research simplifies diagnosis of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease

25-Jul-2006 - Hereditary Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease strikes 1 in 2500 people. Researchers from the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) connected to the University of Antwerp are now demonstrating that mutations in mitofusin 2 are the major cause of CMT2, a specific type of the ...