Puberty, that awkward phase when boys and girls are primed for their sexual reproductive years as men and women, appears to be triggered by the brain's own version of "It takes two to tango," whereby a signal literally gets turned on by a molecule that is produced by a gene aptly named KiSS-1.

The couple – a biochemical equivalent to Adam and Eve – makes its sudden appearance in a region of the brain called the hypothalamus just as puberty begins, according to a study published in this week's online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

In a development that could one day score a touchdown for better health, chemists in Australia have created a "superbowl" molecule that shows promise for precision drug delivery, according to a recent study in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Shaped like a miniature football stadium, the molecule is capable of delivering a wide range of drugs — from painkillers to chemotherapy cocktails — to specific areas of the body, potentially resulting in improved treatment outcomes and perhaps saving lives, the researchers say.

University of Michigan researchers have developed a faster, more efficient way to produce a wide variety of nanoparticle drug delivery systems, using DNA molecules to bind the particles together.

Nanometer-scaled dendrimers can be assembled in many configurations by using attached lengths of single-stranded DNA molecules, which naturally bind to other DNA strands in a highly specific fashion.

"With this approach, you can target a wide variety of molecules---drugs, contrast agents---to almost any cell," said Dr. James R. Baker Jr., the Ruth Dow Doan Professor of Nanotechnology and director of the Center for Biologic Nanotechnology at U-M.

Whether a bioartificial kidney containing billions of donor kidney cells will help intensive care patients with kidney failure survive is under study at the Medical College of Georgia.

MCG Medical Center has joined a study taking place in intensive care units across the country to evaluate the efficacy of the renal assist device, says Dr. Harold M. Szerlip, MCG nephrologist specializing in acute renal failure and a principal investigator on the study.

"If you have renal failure in the ICU, your mortality is extremely high," Dr. Szerlip says. "Anywhere from 50 to 70 percent of those patients die and over the past 20 years, despite dialysis, that has not changed much."

A small sequence of DNA in the envelope (Env) protein of a mouse breast tumor virus (called MMTV) can transform breast cells into cancer cells, according to a study by Katz et al. in the February 7 issue of The Journal of Experimental Medicine. The ability of this motif to transform cells single-handedly suggests that viral infection may be an important and previously unrecognized trigger for breast cancer.

After years of trial and error, scientists have coaxed human embryonic stem cells to become spinal motor neurons, critical nervous system pathways that relay messages from the brain to the rest of the body.

The new findings, reported online today (Jan. 30, 2005) in the journal Nature Biotechnology by scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, are important because they provide critical guideposts for scientists trying to repair damaged or diseased nervous systems.

Activists hope this weekend's African Union (AU) summit will net commitments to boost government spending on public health, helping to curb the spread of AIDS, which killed 2.3 million Africans in 2004.

"We are definitely optimistic that this time there will be some movement, that this time there will be not just talk about an HIV strategy for the AU but how to tackle an action-oriented plan," Oxfam spokeswoman Shehnilla Mohamed said.

"Governments are learning that fighting AIDS is not just a health issue but a development issue," she said.

Contrary to the results of a recent U.S. study, investigators in Japan found no association between a herpesvirus infection and a potentially life-threatening form of high blood pressure, as reported in the March 1 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online.

The researchers reported that they were not able to detect human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8), also known as the Kaposi's sarcoma virus, in the lungs of 22 patients with primary or other forms of pulmonary hypertension. These observations, by Harutaka Katano and colleagues from Toho University School of Medicine and the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in Tokyo, Japan, contrast with those in a much-publicized 2003 article published in The New England Journal of Medicine that reported the presence of the virus in similar samples of lung tissue from a similar number of patients.

In the most detailed large-scale study to date of the proteins that package DNA, researchers have mapped a family of switches that turn genes on and off. Their findings may help scientists understand regulatory mechanisms underlying cancer and human development.

The research team includes first author Bradley Bernstein, recipient of a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) physician postdoctoral fellowship who works in the Harvard University laboratory of HHMI investigator Stuart L. Schreiber. Other co-authors are from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and Affymetrix. Their findings are published in the January 28, 2005 issue of Cell.

For patients with high-risk breast cancer treated with radical mastectomy and adjuvant chemotherapy, the addition of radiation therapy leads to better survival outcomes with few long-term toxic effects, according to a 20-year follow-up of a randomized trial, which appears in the January 19 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The British Columbia randomized radiation therapy trial was designed to determine the effect on survival of the addition of locoregional radiation therapy (radiation to the lymph nodes and chest wall) to a course of chemotherapy after radical mastectomy in premenopausal women with lymph node–positive breast cancer. Between 1979 and 1986, 318 patients were randomly assigned to receive no radiation therapy or to receive radiation. A 15-year follow-up found that radiation therapy was associated with improved breast cancer survival but not with overall survival.

Researchers led by a Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School team found that wheezing -- a key physiological component of asthma -- requires the interaction of genes in several locations. The work, involving multiple independent verification, demonstrates the complexity of the genetic predisposition to asthma.

The study, "Interacting genetic loci cause airway hyperresponsiveness," appears online in Physiological Genomics, published by the American Physiological Society.

Advanced melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer, can be successfully treated in some cases by vaccinating patients with tumor proteins. How these vaccines work and why they are only effective in some patients remains unclear. Pierre Coulie and colleagues now show, in two articles in the January 17 issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine, that these vaccines work by increasing the number of immune cells called killer T cells that can attack the tumor. In an unexpected finding, however, they discovered that that these cells mostly recognize tumor proteins that were not contained in the vaccine. Understanding the characteristics of the T cell populations that are expanded after vaccination may help in the development of more effective anti-tumor vaccines.

One in five mammals living on Earth is a bat, yet their evolutionary history is largely unknown because of a limited fossil record and conflicting or incomplete theories about their origins and divergence.

Now, a research team including University of California, Riverside Biology Professor Mark Springer, has published a paper in the Jan. 28 issue of the journal Science that uses molecular biology and the fossil data to fill in many of the gaps.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers have identified a molecular mechanism in the liver that explains, for the first time, how consuming foods rich in saturated fats and trans-fatty acids causes elevated blood levels of cholesterol and triglycerides and increases one's risk of heart disease and certain cancers.

In the Jan. 28 issue of Cell, scientists led by Bruce Spiegelman, PhD, report that the harmful effects of saturated and trans fats are set in motion by a biochemical switch, or co-activator, in liver cells called PGC-1beta.

At first, we thought that gene expression was modulated only by transcription factors. Then we found that the RNA resulting from transcription could be regulated by the RISC complex (siRNA-mediated degradation via Dicer). And now it seems that regulation at the RNA level is even more complex than we first imaginated...

As any dedicated video game player knows, the first requirement for using a weapon or tool is finding it. And it is no different for cell biologists and clinicians who want to take control of gene expression in cells to create therapies to treat disease. While cells have a variety of ways to control gene expression, the trick for players in this game is to recognize them amidst the incredibly complex background of cellular machinery.

Now, in a paper in the January 28th issue of Cell, Lynne E. Maquat, Ph.D., professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and her team have identified a novel pathway for RNA degradation, a form of regulation that has garnered significant attention in recent years, and one that has the potential to produce a new set of tools for physicians to use to fight disease.

Clinical trials to test the safety of a first-of-its-kind human hookworm vaccine will begin in the Washington, DC area in a couple of months after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration conferred investigational new drug status on the vaccine. No current vaccine is available to prevent hookworm disease, which is one of the most common chronic infections of humans with an estimated 740 million cases in areas of rural poverty in the tropics and subtropics.

Deficiencies in the ability of cells to repair damaged DNA are associated with an increased risk of breast cancer, according to a new study in the January 19 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

DNA repair is the system of defenses designed to protect the integrity of the genome. Studies have suggested that deficiency in cells' capacity for DNA repair contributes to the accumulation of DNA damage and accelerates the genetic changes involved in carcinogenesis.

A year ago, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers discovered that the spleen might be a source of adult stem cells that could regenerate the insulin-producing islets of the pancreas. In a follow-up to that unexpected finding, members of the same team now report that these potential adult stem cells produce a protein previously believed to be present only during the embryonic development of mammals. The finding both supports the existence of these splenic stem cells and also suggests they may be able to produce an even greater variety of tissues. The report appears in the January 19 issue of SAGE KE, an online resource on the science of aging from the publishers of the journal Science.

Two genes with very strong associations with the disease systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have been identified by a team of scientists headed by researchers at the Department of Medical Sciences at Uppsala University. The findings are being published today on the Web page of the highly prestigious American Journal of Human Genetics. "These findings are probably the first genetic pieces of a huge 'interferon puzzle,' with whose help it will be possible to discover the mechanisms behind the disease SLE, and maybe other autoimmune diseases at the molecular level," says Professor Lars Rönnblom.

Researchers have discovered a way to make light sensitive cells in the eye by switching on a single gene. According to research published online today in Nature, the team from Imperial College London and the University of Manchester, have discovered that activating the melanopsin gene in the nerve cells causes them to become light responsive, or photoreceptive.

UC Riverside researchers from the Departments of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Botany and Plant Sciences have worked together to discover a way to utilize Quantum Dot bio-conjugates to uncover new knowledge about the binding of a protein at the growing pollen tube tip. This protein plays a critical role along with another protein (chemocyanin) in guiding sperm-laden pollen tubes to the eggs found in ovules.

Made-to-measure skin and bones, which could be used to treat burn victims or patients who have suffered severe disfigurements, may soon be a reality using inkjets which can print human cells. Scientists at The University of Manchester have developed the breakthrough technology which will allow tailor-made tissues and bones to be grown, simply by inputting their dimensions into a computer.

In a finding that broadens our insight into the cause of certain kinds of UV-induced skin cancer, researchers at Erasmus University Medical Center (Rotterdam, The Netherlands) have employed an evolutionarily ancient enzyme-repair system to identify the principal type of DNA damage responsible for the onset of skin-tumor development. The researchers' findings also suggest that this enzyme system may be useful in developing preventative therapies against skin cancer.

Microbes living in the brilliantly colored hot springs of Yellowstone National Park use primarily hydrogen for fuel, a discovery University of Colorado at Boulder researchers say bodes well for life in extreme environments on other planets and could add to understanding of bacteria inside the human body. A team of CU-Boulder biologists led by Professor Norman Pace, one of the world's leading experts on molecular evolution and microbiology, published their report "Hydrogen and bioenergetics in the Yellowstone geothermal system" this week in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The team's findings, based on several years of research at the park, refute the popular idea that sulfur is the main source of energy for tiny organisms living in thermal features.

Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have discovered a way to overcome one of the major hurdles in gene therapy for cancer: its tendency to kill normal cells in the process of eradicating cancer cells. In a new study published in the Jan. 25 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the researchers demonstrated that the technique works by incorporating it into a specially designed virus. The virus eradicated prostate cancer cells in the lab and in animals while leaving normal cells unscathed.

Researchers at Nanosphere, Inc. today reported unprecedented benefits in the company's technology for the medical analysis of human DNA.

Nanosphere's nanoparticle-based technology allows for rapid, highly-sensitive and specific Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) genotyping, which is the direct detection of a particular gene and the extent to which it is normal or mutated. The technology, reported in the February 2005 (Volume 33, Number 2), issue of Nucleic Acids Research, allows detection of a SNP in an unknown genotype with a greater than 99 percent confidence threshold and can be used with human DNA obtained from samples as small as a drop of blood. Importantly, the technology eliminates the need for costly, time and labor intensive gene amplification or enzymatic interventions – two widespread methods currently used to perform such analyses.

Following the "Current human embryonic stem cell lines contaminated UCSD/Salk team finds" story from two days ago, I spotted an interesting comment from the White House Gaggle : "This is an issue that has been previously raised and discussed. We've known from the very beginning that the lines that were authorized for research had this particular trait…and the scientists at NIH are very well aware of it and remain confident that the stem cell lines that are available will provide us with the adequate supply to do the most basic research." The NIH had asked the FDA to specifically look at the issue and the FDA concluded that the same issue is presented by human feeder cells. "There is still much uncertainty about the promise of stem cell research. We are only at the stage of the beginning of basic research to understand the promise of embryonic stem cell research."

Bioengineering researchers at the University of California, San Diego have invented a process to help turn embryonic stem cells into the types of specialized cells being sought as possible treatments for dozens of human diseases and health conditions. Sangeeta Bhatia and Shu Chien, UCSD bioengineering professors, and Christopher J. Flaim, a bioengineering graduate student, described the cell-culture technique in a paper published in the February issue of Nature Methods, which became available online on Jan. 21.

For the first time, researchers have automatically grouped fluorescently tagged proteins from high-resolution images of cells. This technical feat opens a new way to identify disease proteins and drug targets by helping to show which proteins cluster together inside a cell. The approach, developed by Carnegie Mellon University, outperforms existing visual methods to localize proteins inside cells, says Professor Robert F. Murphy, whose report, "Data Mining in Genomics and Proteomics," appears in an upcoming special issue of the Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology.

Lack of the enzyme, acetyl CoA carboxylase 2 or ACC2, appears to turn the adipose or fat cells of mice into fat burners, explaining in part why the animals can eat more and weigh less than their normal counterparts, said Baylor College of Medicine researchers. The report that appears online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Physicians at Emory University School of Medicine are conducting a clinical trial using stem cells generated within the bone marrow to grow new blood vessels that could improve circulation in patients with blockages in the arteries of their legs -- a condition called peripheral vascular disease (PVD). Individuals with PVD have decreased blood flow to the muscles of the legs, especially during exercise, which causes pain, aching, cramping or fatigue in the muscles of their legs when they walk. This condition also is called "intermittent claudication". The Emory team, led by cardiologist Arshed A. Quyyumi, MD, and cardiology fellow Veerappan Subramaniyam, MD, is using colony stimulating factors (growth factors), to prod the bone marrow to release a type of stem cells called endothelial progenitor cells, which are used by the body to form new blood vessels or to repair damaged ones.

Medication against nicotine addiction is nowadays readily available. However, a similar and equally dangerous addiction, alcoholism, can't yet be controlled by drugs. Or can it be? Researchers from the University of California in San Diego identified a natural compound able to block alcohol addiction in rodents. We can only hope that anti-alcoholism patchs or gum will be available in a close future; it would help fix a problem that we've been struggling with for ages. A naturally occurring hallucinogen advocated by some clinicians as a potent anti-addiction drug has been rigorously studied for the first time, confirming its ability to block alcohol craving in rodents, and clarifying how it works in the brain. The new research findings about the drug Ibogaine open the way for development of other drugs to reverse addiction without Ibogaine's side effects, potentially adding to the small arsenal of drugs that effectively combat addiction.

Currently available lines of human embryonic stem cells have been contaminated with a non-human molecule that compromises their potential therapeutic use in human subjects, according to research by investigators at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine and the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. In a study published online January 23, 2005 in the journal Nature Medicine, the researchers found that human embryonic stem cells, including those currently approved for study under federal funding in the U.S., contain a non-human, cell-surface sialic acid called N-glycolylneuraminic acid (Neu5Gc), even though human cells are genetically unable to make it. In a related paper published November 29, 2004 by the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC), the Varki group has also discovered the exact cellular mechanism by which this occurs.

Along with aiding efforts to study addicted smokers, a new drug that attaches only to areas of the brain that have been implicated in nicotine addiction may help studies of people battling other disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia. Developed by UC Irvine Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center scientists, the new drug – Nifrolidine – is a selective binding agent that identifies specific areas of the brain responsible for decision-making, learning and memory. Lead researcher Jogeshwar Mukherjee, UCI associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior, developed Nifrolidine to measure a subtype of nicotine receptors in the living brain by using an imaging technique, positron emission tomography, more commonly known as PET scans. After proving the drug’s effectiveness, Mukherjee believes the drug will have implications for other conditions, as well.

Brain cells in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease have surprised scientists with their ability to recuperate after the disorder's characteristic brain plaques are removed. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis injected mice with an antibody for a key component of brain plaques, the amyloid beta (Abeta) peptide. In areas of the brain where antibodies cleared plaques, many of the swellings previously observed on nerve cell branches rapidly disappeared.

Another important piece to the photosynthesis puzzle is now in place. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley have identified one of the key molecules that help protect plants from oxidation damage as the result of absorbing too much light. The researchers determined that when chlorophyll molecules in green plants take in more solar energy than they are able to immediately use, molecules of zeaxanthin, a member of the carotenoid family of pigment molecules, carry away the excess energy.

Many rivers and streams in the United States are believed to contain a toxic antimicrobial chemical whose environmental fate was never thoroughly scrutinized despite large scale production and usage for almost half a century, according to an analysis conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The chemical, triclocarban, has been widely used for decades in hand soaps and other cleaning products, but rarely was monitored for or detected in the environment. The new findings suggest that triclocarban contamination is greatly underreported. The study is published in the current online edition of Environmental Science & Technology, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society.

Timing is everything, it seems, even in science. A team led by Johns Hopkins scientists has unraveled the first step in translating genetic information in order to build a protein, only to find that it's not one step but two. In a series of experiments, the scientists found that when yeast's protein-building machinery recognizes the starting line for a gene's instructions, it first alters its structure and then releases a factor known as eIF1, a step necessary to let it continue reading the assembly instructions. Even though yeast are the most primitive relatives of humans, the protein-building machinery, or ribosomes, of each are quite similar.

University of Washington TechTransfer recently licensed software that will give scientists a huge advantage in the fight against disease. The software, known as Rosetta, predicts how proteins fold, information that is highly valuable to biological and biomedical researchers. UW Tech Transfer's Digital Ventures licensed Rosetta software without charge to the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB), a non-profit research organization. The institute has partnered with IBM and United Devices, an Austin-based company, to create the Human Proteome Folding Project, a global effort to determine the structures of the approximately 60 percent of human proteins with no known function.

How do insects smell? Badly, according to a new study, if they lack a certain kind of protein critical to their ability to detect and interpret pheromones – the insect equivalent of "smelling." Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered how a protein, called an olfactory binding protein, links incoming pheromone signals and specific nerve cells in an insect's brain, which in turn translate those signals. Pheromones are chemical signals given off by animals that, when detected by others of the same species, mediate a variety of behaviors, such as feeding, mating and colonizing.