Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered how a small molecule of RNA called microRNA – a chemical cousin of DNA – helps fine tune the production of a key protein involved in the early development of heart muscle.

The findings, available in the online edition of the journal Nature, may aid scientists in their understanding of how a progenitor cell, or stem cell, decides to become a heart cell, as well as offer researchers a way to predict how other microRNAs in the body control the production of important proteins. The discoveries could provide clues important to understanding both stem cell biology and congenital heart disease.

When it comes to the deadly skin cancer melanoma, studying functional tissue rather than cell lines may better provide insight into the disease's development, according to new research from a Howard Hughes Medical Institute predoctoral fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Ibruprofen and other commonly used painkillers for treating inflammation may increase the risk of heart attack, researchers from The University of Nottingham say in this week's BMJ.

Patients should not stop taking the drugs involved - non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) - but further investigation into these treatments is needed, say the authors.

Using targeted RNA interference, or RNAi libraries, researchers at Harvard Medical School describe the first large-scale classification of kinase and phosphatase gene families on the basis of their role in apoptosis and cell survival. This study appears in the June issue of Nature Cell Biology.

A national conference in South Africa was dominated this week by the continuing debate over HIV/AIDS drugs. Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang repeated yet again that drugs were not the only way to fight HIV/AIDS, and that eating habits were also important.

After previously denying links between HIV and AIDS, the South African government began providing AIDS drugs in clinics last year. As many as five million South Africans are HIV positive, which is more than any other nationality in the world.

Thomas C. Quinn, M.D., a Johns Hopkins physician and scientist, who has spent the best part of the last 25 years leading major efforts to combat HIV and AIDS throughout the world, is calling for global strategies and resources to confront the rapid "feminization" of the AIDS pandemic.