A composite figure showing a surface rendering of the critical EscJ inner-membrane ring structure representing the first crystallographic analysis of a major structural component of the Type III system. The structure is superposed on a background electron microscopic image of enterpathogenic E.coli, along with a low-resolution model of the intact needle as derived from earlier electron microscopic analysis. EscJ is localized to the terminal pair of stacked rings in the model. Image: Natalie StrynadkaThe bacteria that cause food poisoning, bubonic plague, and whooping cough all deploy the same weapon to infect the body. A molecular "syringe" sticks out of the bacteria, pokes a hole in a nearby cell, and squirts in venomous proteins that hijack the cell's machinery.

For the first time, Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have captured a detailed picture of the large doughnut-shaped base of the syringe barrel embedded in the bacterial membranes. The findings are reported in a paper in the June 2, 2005, issue of the journal Nature.

This first atomic picture of a major structural component of the hazardous molecular hypodermic may help scientists develop a new kind of drug that can disable the syringe and render disease-causing bacteria harmless while sparing beneficial bacteria. Currently, doctors must fight bacterial infections with antibiotics, which kill all bacteria, good and bad. Furthermore, the researchers are optimistic that drugs of this type might be effective against pathogens that are resistant to existing antibiotics.

In one of the largest adult vaccine clinical trials ever, researchers have found that an experimental vaccine against shingles (zoster vaccine) prevented about half of cases of shingles--a painful nerve and skin infection--and dramatically reduced its severity and complications in vaccinated persons who got the disease. The findings appear in the June 2 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, today announced four-year grants totaling approximately $80 million for two new Regional Centers of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research (RCE). The grants to the University of California, Irvine, and Colorado State University (Fort Collins) mark the completion of a national network of academic centers that conducts research to counter threats from bioterror agents and emerging infectious diseases. Each institution will receive approximately $10 million per year for the next four years to head a regional research consortium. The RCE network was identified as a national priority in the 2002 NIAID Biodefense Research Agenda.

Using a newly released method to analyze functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Northwestern University researchers have demonstrated that the interconnections between different parts of the brain are dynamic and not static. This and other findings answer longstanding debates about how brain networks operate to solve different cognitive tasks. They are presented in the current (June 1) issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

Rare salamanders at a Georgia military base are the guinea pigs for Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers whose goal is to develop methods to better determine whether a species has vanished.

After not finding any flatwoods salamanders since 2001, Fort Stewart biologists were a bit concerned and were looking for a better survey method, said Mark Bevelhimer, an aquatic ecologist and member of ORNL's Environmental Sciences Division. A Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program project is helping in that area and addressing even greater challenges.

Adoptive cell transfer (ACT) therapy is used to treat patients with metastatic solid tumors. ACT involves the removal of some of the patient's cancer cells, and some of their immune T cells. When the cells are mixed together, specific parts of the cancer cells that stimulate the T cells to cause an immune attack can be identified. The T cells get expanded and re-infused into the patient to mount an immunological, anti-cancer response against the tumors. One of the challenges faced is selecting the appropriate T cells with proper antigen specificity.

The rather new concept of "tumor stem cells" maintains that a rare, stem cell-like population of cancer cells exists among the mix of other cells found in a tumor and that these tumor stem cells are responsible for tumor progression and metastasis. In a revolutionary study appearing in the June 1 print issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Gennadi Glinsky and colleagues from the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center evaluated 1122 cancer patients diagnosed with 10 different types of cancer.