An experimental procedure that dramatically strengthens stem cells' ability to regenerate damaged tissue could offer new hope to sufferers of muscle-wasting diseases such as myopathy and muscular dystrophy, according to researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW).

Health professionals send genes and healthy cells on their way through the bloodstream so that they can, for example, repair tissue damage to arteries. But do they reach their destination in sufficient quantities? Scientists of the PTB have developed a highly sensitive measuring method with which the efficiency of this therapy can be investigated: Small magnetic particles which are situated on the planted gene or on the planted cell can with the aid of an external magnetic field be specifically directed to the location of the damage. There the researchers determine, accurate to the picogram per cell, the quantity of the magnetic material – and thus also the quantity of the therapeutically effective genes or cells. In a joint study with the University of Bonn it became clear: By means of the magnetic method it is possible to dramatically increase the efficiency of the gene transfer in comparison to the non-magnetic method.

The function of a protein is determined both by its structure and by its interaction partners in the cell. Until now, proteins had to be isolated for analyzing them. An international team of researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University, Goethe University, and the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS) has, for the first time, determined the structure of a protein in its natural environment, the living cell. Using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, the researchers solved the structure of a protein within the bacterium Escherichia coli. "We have reached an important goal of molecular biology", says Prof. Peter Güntert from the Goethe University's Biomolecular Magnetic Resonance Center. (BMRZ) of The research results will be published by the scientific journal Nature on March 5, 2009.

Moths need just the essence of a flower's scent to identify it, according to new research from The University of Arizona in Tucson.

The team of Dr. Robert Koenekoop which includes Dr. Irma Lopez from the Research Institute of the MUHC at the Montreal Children's Hospital played a crucial role in the international collaboration that led to the discovery of a new gene that causes Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA) and retinitis pigmentosa (RP), two devastating forms of childhood blindness.

The means by which most deadly malaria parasites are detected and killed by the mosquitoes that carry them is revealed for the first time in research published today (5 March) in Science Express. The discovery could help researchers find a way to block transmission of the disease from mosquitoes to humans.

Two highly lethal viruses that have emerged in recent outbreaks are susceptible to chloroquine, an established drug used to prevent and treat malaria, according to a new basic science study by researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College in the Journal of Virology. Due to the study's significance, a manuscript was published yesterday online, in advance of the print issue, and will be highlighted as an editor's "spotlight" in the first May issue.