Researchers have discovered a way to control the growth rate of replacement tissue and the formation of new blood vessels, which solves one of the vexing problems of growing replacement tissue to treat injuries and trauma in humans.

One strategy being pursued to develop new vaccines against infectious diseases is DNA vaccination. The idea is that following administration of a DNA vaccine, the body converts the information in the DNA vaccine into a protein that activates an immune response. However, current DNA vaccines induce relatively weak immune responses even if administered multiple times. New data, generated in mice, by Ralph Steinman and colleagues, at the Rockefeller University, New York, has now identified a way to make DNA vaccines more potent.

Cancer cells get a helping hand from platelets, specialized blood cells involved in clotting. Platelets shelter and feed tumor cells that stray into the bloodstream, making it easier for cancer to spread, or metastasize. Research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that inactivating platelets could slow down or prevent metastasis.

A new study suggests that a type of acute leukemia may occur in part because abnormally low levels of one small molecule result in the over-activity of genes important to the disease.