In a recent study published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, scientists report that a molecule previously thought to play a purely structural and inert role in cells is actually involved in multidrug resistance in cancer. Using antagonists for this molecule, the researchers were able to sensitize drug resistant breast cancer cells to chemotherapeutic drug treatment.

The research appears as the "Paper of the Week" in the May 27 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, an American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology journal.

Using state of the art imaging technology a team from Yale School of Medicine has glimpsed one of the cell's most important 'nano-machines' in action. The work, performed in collaboration with English and French scientists, provides new insight into the machinery cells use to internalize cell surface receptors.

It begins with receding hairlines, the forehead becomes higher, the hair at the back of the man's head gets thinner and thinner. Every second man suffers from greater or lesser hair loss. There are hardly any successful counter-measures – despite an enormous range of obscure lotions and tinctures.

The visual cortex of the adult primate brain displays less flexibility in response to retinal injury than previously thought, according to a new study published in the May 19, 2005, issue of the journal Nature. This may have implications for other regions of the brain, and the approach the investigators used may be a key to developing successful neurological interventions for stroke patients in the future.

Children with a fatal genetic disorder called Krabbe Disease can be saved and their brain development preserved if they receive stem cells from umbilical cord blood before symptoms of the disease develop, according to a study published in the May 19, 2005, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Opening the door to a new way of understanding ocean processes and managing and protecting marine resources, a group of researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, has developed a groundbreaking analysis of the North Pacific Ocean and how dramatic changes can unfold across its waters.

Embryonic stem cells with identical genomes grow into distinctive tissues, such as heart, bone, and brain. At one time, scientists believed the differences among cell types arose from various sets of genes switched on inside developing cells. Then, studies showed that adult neurons uniquely lack a protein that permanently turns off neuronal genes in the rest of the body's cells.