by Michael Spencelayh
Researchers from the UK have designed a test that will help in the search for new anti-malaria medicines.
Malaria is caused by parasites of the genus Plasmodium and causes over one million deaths per year. Plasmodium has a complex life cycle involving the host and an insect carrier, but a critical step is the invasion of red blood cells.
A robust new technique for screening drugs' effects on zebrafish behavior is pointing Harvard scientists toward unexpected compounds and pathways that may govern sleep and wakefulness in humans.
Among their more intriguing findings, described this week in the journal Science: Various anti-inflammatory agents in the immune system, long known to induce sleep during infection, may also shape normal sleep/wake cycles. The new research identifies several compounds with surprising effects on sleep and wakefulness in zebrafish. But it also suggests that despite the evolutionary gap between them, zebrafish and mammals may be strikingly similar in the neurochemistry underlying their rest/wake cycles, meaning these same compounds may prove effective in people.
by Simon Hadlington
Researchers in the Czech Republic have shown that an unusual class of boron-containing compound can inhibit HIV protease, a key enzyme involved in replicating the virus that causes Aids. The finding is potentially signficant because the compounds - metallacarboranes - attack the enzyme in a different way to most existing drugs and could help overcome problems of resistance.
Together with a surgical team at University of Oxford we are developing novel tissue expanders for use in reconstructive surgery, with the ability to expand in only one direction. Tissue expanders are essential in providing extra soft tissue for a wide range of reconstructive techniques. However they have a number of disadvantages. Inflatable silicone balloons are bulky and unsuitable for small delicate areas. They must be regularly inflated by means of a filling port, which is both time demanding and painful for the patient and there is a risk that the device may leak. Self-inflating hydrogel expanders have heralded a significant advance. However they expand isotropically at an uncontrolled rate and have limited expansion limits. Therefore their use in specific applications such as cleft palate surgery, syndactyly (fused digit) release and facial reconstruction has been limited.
Read more: Novel Tissue Expanders for Maxillo-Facial Reconstruction
New research shows that a protein often accused of sparking autoimmune disease can actually tamp down inflammation and suppress the onset of inflammatory bowel disease. Experiments by Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers at Yale University reveal that the immune protein interleukin 17A, or IL-17A, can take on the characteristics of Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde – depending on the time and place.
Read more: Protein May Have a Good Side in Preventing Inflammation
by Clive Svendsen
Results of unregulated stem cell transplant were predictable and avoidable
(This commentary provides an expert perspective to an article published in PLoS Medicine, which has been reported in Nature and Nature Reports Stem Cells.)
The study by Amariglio et al. describes a stem cell transplant attempt in a child with ataxia telangiectasia, a rare genetic disease that leads to poor coordination and dilation of blood vessels1. These patients also have weakened immune systems and are more prone to cancer.
Read more: Stem Cell Clinical Trials Must be Closely Monitored
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This news service is provided by Good Samaritan Institute, located in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.
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