RESEARCH NEWS 2004-10-04 Research News Stem cells: Science…or science fiction? Often lost in all the political hoopla are the scientific reservations about whether stem cells can truly—and safely—replace decrepit or dead cells in vivo (see ARF Live Discussion). Two reports in the
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-09-30 Research News Pharmaceutical giant Merck announced today that it was withdrawing rofecoxib, a pain and antiinflammatory drug, from worldwide markets because of safety concerns (see statement from the company website). The nonsteroidal antiinflammatory dru
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-09-30 Research News Though it is a relatively new target of Alzheimer disease researchers, the nuclear peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) has gained a lot of attention in a short time. (See ARF live discussion.) There are both insulin and infl
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-09-30 Research News γ-secretase, the multiprotein complex that unleashes amyloid-β1-42 (Aβ1-42) from the amyloidβ precursor protein (AβPP), seems an obvious place to start if you want to develop a drug to prevent or slow Alzheimer disease. There’s only one prob
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-09-27 Research News In the September 24 issue of Molecular Cell, Erich Wanker and colleagues demonstrate the power of combining cDNA and yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) screens in pursuit of protein accomplices of disease-suspect molecules, in this case huntingtin (htt)
INTERVIEWS 2004-09-27 Interviews We’ve all heard the phrase “publish or perish.” What we really mean is “publish positive or perish.” Scientists shy away from negative results. But are we doing ourselves a disservice? Are we missing out on a wealth of information? Paul Coleman
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-09-24 Research News Amyloid-β, the peptide that forms the hallmark plaques of Alzheimer disease, can exist in a variety of forms, including monomers, soluble oligomers, and fully fledged fibrils. The oligomers, or protofibrils, are generally thought to be inter
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-09-23 Research News Amyloids, whether of the amyloid-β of Alzheimer disease, or of other peptides such as transthyretin, are composed of long polymeric fibrils that stick together like glue. But how are the fibers formed? Does a chain grow by the addition of si
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-09-19 Research News In the September 16 issue of Nature, another legion of geneticists, this one led by Jeremy Schmutz of the Stanford Human Genome Centre in California, pulls the curtain back on a chromosome: number 5. This relatively gene-poor chromosome hold
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-09-16 Research News Two papers from the past week take aim at the β-sheet structure of proteins prone to pathological aggregation. A team led by Luis Serrano of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg offers up a computer algorithm to help predi
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-09-15 Research News Mitochondria, those bags of energy once revered for keeping us all respiring, have come in for some bad press since they were discovered to initiate programmed cell death in addition to spewing out toxic reactive oxygen species (ROS). But th
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-09-13 Research News …X11, that is, a nuclear adaptor protein that binds to the intracellular domain of amyloid-β precursor protein (AβPP). Last year, Christopher Miller and colleagues at Kings College London reported that overexpression of X11α in a mouse model
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-09-10 Research News A study in the September issue of Molecular Therapy reports that the developmental regulatory factors Sonic hedgehog (Shh) and Gli-1, but not Nurr-1, can protect dopaminergic neurons when delivered via a virus in a toxin model of Parkinson d
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-09-07 Research News Organism-level experimental data now lend some support to the epidemiologic evidence that the fatty acids in fish oil can protect against Alzheimer disease. Writing in Neuron, a research team led by Greg Cole and Frédéric Calon of the Univer
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-09-03 Research News Biological synchrony, be it the contraction of heart muscles or the flashing of firefly lanterns, almost always reflects some fundamentally important physiology. In yesterday’s Neuron, Giorgio Carmignoto and colleagues at the University of P