Women’s saliva proteins change with advancing age

November 19th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new discovery may help explain the long-standing mystery of why the hepatitis B virus (HBV) sexually discriminates - hitting men harder than women. The virus targets men more readily than women, triggering serious complications like cirrhosis and liver cancer.

November 19th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The Hepatitis B virus (HBV) targets men more readily than women, triggering serious complications like cirrhosis and liver cancer, says a new study. Men infected with HBV are also six times more likely than women to develop a chronic form of the disease.

November 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - For the first time, Chinese researchers have developed the largest-ever collection of data about the proteins produced by genes in a single human organ-the liver. It is believed that the massive database in both protein and transcript levels could become a roadmap for finding possible new biomarkers and treatments for liver disease, including hepatitis and liver cancer.

November 11th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists from University of Florida and University of Wisconsin have identified a protein that plays a critical role in development of age-related hearing loss. The protein called Bak appears to be central to processes that cause oxidative damage to cells and lead to hearing loss.

October 21st, 2009 WASHINGTON - Engineered light-sensitive molecules, introduced into a blind rodent's eye caused it to see, according to results from an interdisciplinary collaboration among labs. The results could lead to treatment for people with inherited blinding eye diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa which affects one in every 3,000 individuals.

October 21st, 2009 WASHINGTON - Getting breast implants does not increase a woman's breast cancer risk or interfere in detection procedure, say researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Centre "The question of how implants affect breast cancer risk and screening tests, like the mammogram, is a question that many women ask," said Dr Therese Bevers, medical director of the Cancer Prevention Centre at M.

October 7th, 2009 Test detects patients who don't respond to PlavixWASHINGTON — "Just spit." With those simple instructions, health care providers in California are hoping to expand the use of genetic testing to make sure patients get the right medication. Scripps Health hospital system has begun using a saliva-based genetic test to detect whether patients will respond to Plavix, a widely used blood thinner that usually prevents clots.

October 3rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - American researchers at Grinnell College in Iowa may be very close to developing effective treatments for nicotine addiction, for they have uncovered a "key" that may "unlock" certain proteins that respond to the poisonous chemical which is found in tobacco. Mark Levandoski, associate professor of Chemistry, examined the family of proteins in the nervous system that respond to nicotine.

September 30th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A naturally-occurring compound found in extra-virgin olive oil can help prevent and treat Alzheimer's disease, say researchers. The team from Monell and Northwestern researchers has found that the compound called oleocanthal alters the structure of neurotoxic proteins believed to contribute to the debilitating effects of Alzheimer's.

September 29th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists claim to have unravelled the evolutionary origin of the prion gene that is responsible for causing diseases such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as "mad cow disease." Diseased prion proteins are responsible for the fatal neurodegenerative Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans, and BSE, scrapie and chronic wasting disease (CWD) in livestock. The researchers say that the new study may provide insights into the origins and underlying constraints of the conformational changes associated with prion diseases.

September 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists from Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) have identified a mechanism that could trigger onset of various genetic diseases. They have found a process by which proteins with a tendency to cause conformational diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, familial amyloidotic polyneuropathy, familial amyloidotic cardiomyopathy, etc.

September 7th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers at the University of British Columbia have turned the bacterium Caulobacter crescentus into a protein production factory by adapting a single protein on its surface, thus making useful proteins that can act as vaccines and drugs. C. crescentus is a harmless bacterium that has a single protein layer on its surface.

September 7th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, have uncovered how manuka honey can help fight infection-by destroying key bacterial proteins. Led by Dr. Rowena Jenkins, the research team investigated the mechanisms of manuka honey action.

September 5th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The more time kids spend outside, the more they are likely to perform well at school, according to a new study. National Wildlife Federation's (NWF) new report suggests that the increasingly indoor lifestyle causes several factors that work against high performance in the classroom.

September 3rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Michigan researchers have developed a powerful new GPS-like tool to identify proteins that are affected by a chemical process that is key to aging and disease development. The probe, which works like a GPS or navigation system for finding these proteins in cells, could lead to new insights into disease processes and identify new targets for disease treatments, according to the researchers.