Researchers have found that patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) carry a population of immune cells that overreact to Epstein-Barr virus. The virus, which causes mononucleosis and may contribute to some cancers, has long been suspected to play a role in MS. However, the mechanism linking the virus to the disease was poorly understood.

Restricting air travel from countries where there is a serious influenza outbreak will do little to hold back the spread of the infection, according to the findings of a study conducted at the UK Health Protection Agency and published in the journal PLoS Medicine.

Working with genetically engineered mice, Johns Hopkins scientists have interfered with the brain's ability to control an animal's response to a high-fat diet. The report, to be published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online the week of May 1, is based on the identification of a gene - CPT1c - the brain needs to manage body weight.

With a five-year, $1 million grant from the National Cancer Institute, a Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center researcher will work to improve the effectiveness of a drug that he developed for the most deadly type of brain tumor.

Image obtained by the new microscope of viverravus acutus, a small meat-eating mammal that lived around 50 million years agoA unique 3-dimensional microscope that works in a new way is giving unprecedented insight into microscopic internal structure and chemical composition. It is revealing how materials are affected, over time, by changes in temperature, humidity, weight load and other conditions.

Transplantation of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs, the cells that can give rise to all blood and most immune cell types) can save patients whose own hematopoietic system is defective or has been destroyed (often through radiation or chemotherapy of cancer). HSCs are very rare, and it is often hard to obtain enough of them for a successful transplant. To overcome this limitation, Hans-Peter Kiem and colleagues have developed a way to expand HSCs in the laboratory prior to transplantation.

An engineered virus tracks down and infects the most common and deadly form of brain cancer and then kills tumor cells by forcing them to devour themselves, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report this week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University(OHSU) have found that melatonin, a naturally occurring brain substance, can relieve the doldrums of winter depression, also known as seasonal affective disorder, or SAD. The study is publishing online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Anthrax vaccine administered in combination with a short course of antibiotics completely protected nonhuman primates from inhalational anthrax, the most lethal form of the disease, according to scientists at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID).

Researchers seeking insights into kidney failure in human infants have located the source of a 30-year-old mystery mutation that causes similar problems in a mouse line.