(American Association for Cancer Research) scientists at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center have developed a risk prediction assessment for lung cancer specifically for African-Americans that suggests a greater risk from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to a report published in the September issue of Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Yale molecular and evolutionary biologists in collaboration with Department of energy scientists produced the full genome sequence of Trichoplax , one of nature's most primitive multicellular organisms, ...

(European Molecular Biology Organization) Even scientists define "a gene" indifferent ways, so it comes as littlesurprise that the media also havevarious ways of framing the conceptof a gene, according to a new studyappearing in the October 2008 issueof EMBO reports.

Current human exposure to bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical used in many polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins, is of "some concern" for effects on development of the prostate gland and brain and for behavioral effects in fetuses, infants and children, according to a final report released today by the National Toxicology Program (NTP). The report provides the NTP's current opinion on BPA's potential to cause harm to human reproduction or development.

A recent study (doi:10.1016/j.clim.2008.06.009) published in Clinical Immunology, the official journal of the Clinical Immunology Society (CIS), describes a new method enabling the detection of multiple parameters of single human cells. The report demonstrates the characterization of specific blood cells from an individual with type 1 diabetes, providing information about the role these cells might play in the development of the disease and during therapy.

Dr. Marcus Conrad of the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology and Tumor Genetics at the Helmholtz Zentrum München has decrypted the molecular mechanism through which the death of cells is caused by oxidative stress. This knowledge opens novel perspectives to systematically explore the benefit of targeted therapeutic interventions in the cure of ageing and stress-related degenerative diseases.

In a collaborative study at the university of California, San Diego, investigators from neurosciences, chemistry and medicine, as well as the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) have investigated how proteins involved in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease interact to form unique complexes. Their findings explain why Alzheimer's patients might develop Parkinson's, and vice versa.

UCLA scientists have succeeded in making unique nanoscale droplets that are much smaller than a human cell and can potentially be used to deliver pharmaceuticals. "What we found that was unexpected was within each oil droplet there was also a water droplet - a double emulsion," said Timothy Deming, professor and chair of the UCLA Department of Bioengineering and a member of both the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA and UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center.

Imagine having to copy an entire book by hand without missing a comma. Our cells face a similar task every time they divide. They must duplicate both their DNA and a subtle pattern of punctuation-like modifications on the DNA known as methylation. scientists at Emory university School of Medicine have caught in action one of the tools mammalian cells use to maintain their pattern of methylation.

Two studies published in the current issue of Cell Transplantation (17:6) examine the efficacy of transplanting bone marrow cells (BMCs) for the repair of heart tissue. The first study found that implanting adult cardiomyocytes (heart muscle cells) in combination with BMCs has two advantages over transplanting cardiomyocytes alone.