Dr. Marcia Blackman and her research team at the Trudeau Institute have followed up on an intriguing report published in the journal Nature in May 2007 by Dr. Herbert Virgin, et al., showing that mice persistently infected with certain forms of herpesvirus, which can establish lifelong latent infections, are resistant to infection with bacterial pathogens.

The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Leipzig, Germany, and the 454 Life Sciences Corporation, in Branford, Connecticut, will announce on 12 February during the 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and at a simultaneous European press briefing that they have completed a first draft version of the Neandertal genome.

After injuries with blood loss, the body quickly needs to restore the vital blood volume. This is accomplished by a special group of stem cells in the bone marrow. These hematopoietic stem cells remain dormant throughout their lives and are only awakened to activity in case of injury and loss of blood. Then they immediately start dividing to make up for the loss of blood cells. This has recently been shown by a group of scientists headed by Professor Andreas Trumpp of DKFZ.

Researchers from the University of Granada, the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the University of Aveiro (Portugal) have studied for the first time nacre's growing mechanism of gastropods, a previous step for the artificial reproduction of this material in laboratories which could make possible its use in biomedicine, with applications such as the regeneration of human bones.