Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered how to block a molecular switch that triggers brain damage caused by the lack of oxygen during a stroke. The Hopkins study, conducted on mice, is believed to be the first to demonstrate that a protein on the surface of nerve cells called the EP1 receptor is the switch, and that a specific compound, known as ONO-8713, turns it off.

A unique clinical trial will gauge the safety and potential of treating children suffering traumatic brain injury with stem cells derived from their own bone marrow starting early next year at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston and Memorial Hermann Children's Hospital.

Screening embryos for genetic diseases during in vitro fertilization offers couples the best chance for a healthy child, but a genetic glitch could potentially cause doctors to misdiagnose a small fraction of them, University of Florida researchers say.

The BioGrid project brought together six partners from the UK, Germany, Cyprus and The Netherlands to address one of the key problems facing the life sciences today.

New York University School of Medicine researchers provide some of the most compelling evidence yet that long-term exposure to air pollution--even at levels within federal standards--causes heart disease. Previous studies have linked air pollution to cardiovascular disease but until now it was poorly understood how pollution damaged the body's blood vessels.

Improved materials may allow stents, tiny metal scaffolds inserted into blood vessels, to better deliver beneficial genes to patients with heart disease, by reducing the risk of inflammation that often negates initial benefits. The new technique, using a compound that binds in an extremely thin layer to bare metal surfaces, may have potential uses in other areas of medicine that make use of metallic implants.

Seeking to catch an arms-race maneuver in action, researchers have uncovered new evidence to explain how bacteria in the process of infecting a plant can shift molecular gears by excising specific genes from its genome to overcome the host plant's specific defenses.

Researchers have developed a new computerized system to easilymonitor the levels of glucose in the blood of patients in intensivecare.

A multi-institutional study offers additional insight into the evolutionary process by examining how albinism evolves in cavefish. Researchers, including New York University Biology Professor Richard Borowsky, examined two populations of Mexican cavefish and found that albinism in both populations was linked to Oca2--a pigmentation gene also responsible for the most common form of albinism in humans. They observed different deletions in the gene in each population and found that both deletions cause a loss of Oca2's functionality, demonstrating that the albinism in the two groups evolved independently. The findings are reported in the latest issue of the journal Nature Genetics.