New genetic research suggests that the traditional risk factors for melanoma may not be as helpful in predicting risk in all people as previously thought, according to data presented at the American Association for Cancer Research 100th Annual Meeting 2009.

School-aged children who witness violence in urban communities show symptoms of post-traumatic stress. They also suffer physiological effects with a disruption to their normal cortisol production pattern during the day, which may have long-term negative effects on their health. According to Dr. Shakira Franco Suglia, from the Harvard School of Public Health, and her team lead by Dr. Rosalind J. Wright from Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA, because these children are not diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, these abnormal physiological symptoms are unlikely to be picked up by their doctors. The study1 has just been published online in Springer's International Journal of Behavioral Medicine.

The human genome complete sequencing project in 2003 revealed the enormous instruction manual necessary to define a human being. However, there are still many unanswered questions. There are few indications on where the functional elements are found in this manual. To explain how we develop, scientists will have to decode the entire network of biological complexes that regulate development. One of the biggest challenges is to analyse the key proteins involved in the development of a human being, namely the proteins that bind to DNA. "If the genome provides the recipe to define a human being, the DNA proteins are the "chefs" that cook it", describes Herbert Auer, manager of the Functional Genomics Facility at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and co-organizer, together with Erich Grotewold, at the Ohio State University, of the Barcelona Biomed Conference, "The DNA proteome". Invited by IRB Barcelona and the BBVA Foundation, twenty-one authorities in the field of genomics present their recent work on 20, 21 and 22 April at the "Institut d'Estudis Catalans", in Barcelona.

The fertile soil of California's Central Valley has long made it famous as one of the nation's prime crop-growing regions. But it's not just the soil that allows for such productivity. Crops like potatoes, dry beans and tomatoes have long been protected from bugs and weeds by the fungicide maneb and the herbicide paraquat.

Proteins go everywhere in the cell and do all sorts of work, but a fundamental question has eluded biologists: How do the proteins know where to go?