A new study has found that cereal fortified with vitamin E has a very high rate of absorption into the bloodstream, whereas pills taken separately with the same food have inconsistent effects, and taking the supplements alone is largely useless. Read the rest of this story »

In the January 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation researchers from Yale University demonstrate that an outer surface protein, OspC, of the organism Borrelia burgdorferi, which causes Lyme disease, is critical for the organism’s ability to invade the tick salivary gland and therefore be transmitted from ticks to humans. Read the rest of this story »

Adult stem cells have long been thought to be restricted in their potential to differentiate and regenerate tissues in which they reside. A study by Sem Phan and colleagues from the University of Michigan, in the January 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation Read the rest of this story »

In the Jan. 16 issue of the journal Science, several national AIDS experts criticize a U.S. government-sponsored clinical research trial of an AIDS vaccine in Thailand. Read the rest of this story »

A UC Riverside team in the Entomology Department has found that genetically engineered mosquitoes are less fertile and less healthy than mosquitoes that have not been altered. Read the rest of this story »

The idea that cancer cells go through a fateful transition that turns them into fast-growing, invasive, metastasizing tumors first surfaced in the early 1970s. By the mid-1980s histological analysis revealed a similarity between the tumor “microenvironment” and that of a healing wound, prompting Harvard pathologist Harold Dvorak to describe cancer as a wound that does not heal. Read the rest of this story »

The European Commissions 6th framework programme has awarded 11.7 million euro to a large project on obesity and type 2 diabetes research. 24 European institutions including three companies are participating in the project. Read the rest of this story »

Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have identified a gene that appears to have played a role in the expansion of the human brain’s cerebral cortex — a hallmark of the evolution of humans from other primates. Read the rest of this story »

In many species, the reproductive cells of the germline can only form properly if certain mRNAs are prevented from translating into proteins until they have been transported to precise target locations in the egg and the appropriate developmental stage has been reached. In a study published in the January issue of Developmental Cell, members of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (CDB) Laboratory for Germline Development Read the rest of this story »

Identifying the targets that bacterial viruses, or phages, use to halt bacterial growth and then screening against those targets for small molecule inhibitors that attack the same targets provides a unique platform for the discovery of novel antibiotics. Read the rest of this story »