For prostate cancer patients whose tumors have continued to grow despite medical or surgical castration, a new drug candidate that inhibits production of male hormones anywhere in the body is showing promise in early trials.

Maize streak viruses (MSV), geminiviruses that can destroy most of a maize crop, are endemic to sub-Saharan Africa and adjacent Indian Ocean islands where they are transmitted by leafhoppers in the genus Cicadulina. Maize can supply 50% of the caloric intake in sub-Saharan Africa but, in certain years, a farmer’s entire crop can be wiped out. Now, scientists at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, along with colleagues at the South African seed company, PANNAR Pty Ltd, have developed a resistant variety of maize that they hope will help alleviate food shortages as well as promote the reputation of genetically engineered (GE) foods in Africa. Dr. Dionne Shepherd of the University of Cape Town will be presenting the results of her recent work and that of coauthors B. Owor, R. Edema, A. Varsani, D.P. Martin, J.A. Thomson and E.P. Rybicki, at the annual meeting of the American Society of Plant Biologists in Chicago (July 8, 11:20 AM) in a major symposium on Plant Biology in Sub-Saharan Africa organized by Debby Delmer of UC Davis.

A virus that has been specifically designed by scientists to be safe to normal tissue but deadly to cancer is showing early promise in a preliminary study, researchers said today at the ESMO Conference Lugano (ECLU), Switzerland.

Chromosome disorders in sex cells cause infertility, miscarriage and irregular numbers of chromosomes (aneuploidy) in neonates. A new study from Karolinska Institutet published in the scientific journal Nature Genetics shows how chromosome disorders can arise when sex cells are formed.

A 10-year study involving thousands of Israeli Jews and Arabs, led by researchers from American and Israeli institutions, has yielded important new information in the search for the genes that make a person more likely to develop colon cancer.

Based on their surprising discovery that an obesity drug can kill cancer cells, scientists at Wake Forest University School of Medicine have made a new finding about the drug’s effects and are working to design more potent cancer treatments.