Scientists produce liver cells from patients’ skin cells

October 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a breakthrough study, researchers at The Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee have succeeded in producing liver cells from patients' skin cells. Led by Dr. Stephen A. Duncan, the study has paved the way for treating a wide range of diseases that affect liver function.

October 5th, 2009 LONDON - Scientists from University of North Carolina have identified a gene that controls the number of cells composing brain. Called GSK-3, the gene has been found to strike a balance between two key processes - proliferation, in which the cells multiply to provide plenty of starting materials, and differentiation, in which those materials evolve into functioning neurons.

October 3rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Swedish researchers have shown that a derivative of cholesterol is necessary for the formation of brain cells by conducting experiments on mice. Professor Ernest Arenas, from the medical university Karolinska Institutet, says that the study's findings may prove helpful for scientists in cultivating dopamine-producing cells outside the body.

September 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have developed a two-step process that uses a chemical reaction to make live cancer cells light up quickly and safely. This attains significance because scientists generally label cells with coloured or glowing chemicals to observe how basic cellular activities differ between healthy and cancerous cells, but existing techniques are either too slow or too toxic to perform on live cells.

September 23rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists from Georgetown University Medical Center are conducting a trial to check the efficacy of gene therapy as a potential treatment for patients with dementia due to Alzheimer's disease. The trial will test the benefits of CERE-110, which contains a gene that is injected during surgery into a part of the brain affected by Alzheimer's disease.

September 23rd, 2009 MELBOURNE - Aussie scientists have discovered that the brain also acts as a key "reservoir" for HIV, a finding that may be a serious threat to the search for a way to eradicate the virus from the body. While scientists are using antiretroviral drugs to get rid of HIV altogether, they are finding it difficult to perfect techniques to kill off infected cells in the known reservoirs for HIV in the body.

September 23rd, 2009 LONDON - Rochester University researchers believe that naked mole rats may help provide cure for cancer. The bald rats never get cancer, and if their trick can be copied it could help humans resist cancer too, claim Andrei Seluanov and Vera Gorbunova.

September 17th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Experts at the Heidelberg University Hospital in Germany have discovered a mechanism in an animal model revealing how HIV cripples immune cells. Dr. Oliver Fackler, in the Virology Department of the Hygiene Institute of the Heidelberg University Hospital, examined the movement of cells in living zebra fish embryos, and showed that cell mobility is inhibited by the HIV Nef protein.

September 16th, 2009 LONDON - A promising pill may be able to treat more types of cancer than first thought, according to researchers. The wonder pill can tackle five other forms of the disease - prostate, skin, ovarian, bowel and womb cancer, say scientists.

September 11th, 2009 WASHINGTON - People can develop liver disease even when they are exposed to second-hand tobacco smoke, according to a study. Scientists at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) have found that exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke can lead to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a common disease and rising cause of chronic liver injury wherein fat accumulates in the liver of people who drink little or no alcohol.

September 10th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers at the University of Leicester and Institute for Molecular and Cellular Biology in Portugal have found that vitamin C can help protect DNA damage of skin cells and lead to better skin regeneration. Previous research has shown that DNA repair is upregulated in people consuming vitamin C supplements.

September 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - An over-expressed protein can convert active but non-invasive breast cancer into a different cell type, and thereby turn it into invasive breast cancer, according to scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

September 6th, 2009 LONDON - Swiss scientists have discovered a kind of eye cells that can alert people to any objects drawing near, without taking the brain's help. Botond Roska and his colleagues at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel believe that this ability may have evolved to speed escape from predators.

September 2nd, 2009 LONDON - A research team led by Indian-origin scientists from University of Michigan have discovered a new mechanism that would help in future therapies for conditions ranging from autoimmune diseases to organ transplants to cancer. U-M biochemistry professor Ruma Banerjee and her colleagues have identified a mechanism that keeps a check on aggressive immune cells that can attack the body's own cells.

August 31st, 2009 LONDON - Scientists have developed a new molecular sensor that can detect the presence of zinc in cells and help improve diagnostics. Zinc is involved in many processes in the body and five percent of all proteins made by the body's cells are involved in transporting zinc.