Applied Genetics News articles from November 2000

Applied Genetics News archives from November 2000

BASIC SCIENCE: Properties of a Stem Cell Nursery.
November 1, 2000... Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Allan C. Spradling and colleague Ting Xie at the Carnegie Institute of Washington have identified the types of cells that make up the specialized cellular environment (niche) that provides stem cells...

Molecule Helps Prevent Alzheimer's.
November 1, 2000... Beta amyloid, the prime ingredient of plaques in the brains of Alzheimer patients, is shuttled out of the brain by a protein known as LRP-1 (low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein), a molecule that plays a role in the transport and...

Muscle Seeks Compatible Nerve.
November 1, 2000... The formation of synapses between nerves and their targets involves not only the outward-reaching filopodia of axons, but also similar structures extending from the target cells. This is the conclusion of University of Illinois (UI, Champaign,...

GENOMICS: IgA Nephropathy Is Inherited.
November 1, 2000... Richard P. Lifton, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and his colleagues at Yale University School of Medicine report that genetic analyses of 30 families in the United States and Italy indicate that IgA nephropathy is caused by a...

Detecting Abnormalities in Chromosomes.
November 1, 2000... A method has been developed to detect chromosomal abnormalities in embryos to be used for in vitro fertilization (IVF). The method, developed by J. Delhanty and D. Wells of the University College (London, U.K.), is based on a whole-genome...

Zinc Finger Regulates Lipids.
November 1, 2000... Myriad Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (320 Wakara Way, Salt Lake City, UT 84108; Tel: 801/584-3600, Fax: 801/584-3640; Website: www.myriad.com) researchers have discovered a gene called CHD1 that encodes a zinc-finger-containing transcription factor...

Touch Detector Discovered.
November 1, 2000... Michael J. Welsh, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of Iowa University of Medicine, reported that knocking out the gene BNC1 in mice greatly reduces the ability to sense light touch. When a hair is touched,...

Alzheimer's-Related Genes Found.
November 1, 2000... AlphaGene, Inc. (260 W. Cummings Park, Woburn, MA; Tel: 781/933- 4446, Fax: 781/933-5424; Website: www.alphagene.com) scientists have identified two novel genes associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Both genes, designated 121181 and 121228,...

GENE THERAPY: Stents Used to Deliver Genes.
November 1, 2000... A team led by Robert J. Levy, director of the Pediatric Cardiology Research Laboratory at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (Tel: 215/590-4091), showed that genes in DNA added to stents were transferred into cells on the artery wall of...

EVOLUTION: RNA May Regulate Development.
November 1, 2000... A team of scientists led by Gary Ruvkun of Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital Biology Department showed that a tiny regulatory RNA, encoded by the gene let-7 in C. elegans, is present in the genomes of a wide variety...

Biped Reptile Preceded Dinosaurs.
November 1, 2000... A fossil of an upright, bipedal reptile that predates the age of the dinosaurs by at least 60 million years has been identified by an international team of scientists. "There are only a couple of times in evolutionary history when animals...

Long Live the Methuselah Bug.
November 1, 2000... Immortality, it appears, is not out of the question for bacteria. Russell Vreeland and William Rosenzweig of West Chester University (West Chester, PA) have isolated and cultured a Bacillus-type bacteria from spores found within brine...

CELL THERAPY: Expansion of Hepatic Stem Cells Reported.
November 1, 2000... Hepatic stem cells, which can form both hepatic and biliary cells, have been isolated and expanded, according to an article published by Hiroshi Kubota and Lola Reid, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, in the...

Stem Cells Repair Spinal Cord Injuries.
November 1, 2000... Researchers at Johns Hopkins, led by Douglas Kerr, report they've restored movement to newly paralyzed rodents by injecting stem cells into the animals' spinal fluid. Their study was presented at the annual meeting of The Society for...

ANTIBODIES: Natural Antibodies Regenerate Nerves.
November 1, 2000... Acorda Therapeutics (15 Skyline Dr., Hawthorne, NY 10532; Tel: 914/347-4300, Fax: 914/347-4560) has been awarded a Phase 1 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant and a Phase 1 Small Business Technology Transfer Grant (STTR) by the...

HORMONES AND CYTOKINES BlyS Levels Elevated in Lupus.
November 1, 2000... Scientists from Human Genome Sciences, Inc. (HGS, 9410 Key West Ave., Rockville, MD 20850; Tel: 301/309-8504, Fax: 301/309-8512) and two of their academic collaborators presented findings at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the American College...

Interleukin-21 Critical for Immune Responses.
November 1, 2000... Interleukin-21 (IL-21) and interleukin-21 receptor (IL-21R) are newly discovered members of an important class of naturally- occurring cytokine ligand-receptor pairs that are involved in the growth and activation of red blood cells, white blood...

VACCINES AND ANTI-INFECTIVES Protection Against Rodent Malaria.
November 1, 2000... An experimental peptide, based on CEL-SCI Corp.'s (8229 Boone Blvd., Suite 802, Vienna, VA 22182; Tel: 703/506-9460, Fax: 703/506-9471) L.E.A.P.S. (Ligand Epitope Antigen Presentation System) technology, induced protective immune responses...

Infectious Disease Grants Awarded.
November 1, 2000... Initial awards have been announced to fund 12 research projects under a new joint NIH-NSF Ecology of Infectious Diseases initiative. The initiative supports efforts to understand the underlying ecological and biological mechanisms that govern...

AG-BIO: PCR Tests for Food-Borne Pathogens.
November 1, 2000... DuPont's (1007 Market St., Wilmington, DE 19898; Tel: 302/774- 1000, Fax: 302/773-2631) Qualicon business has established a collaboration with the Antimicrobial Resistance Research Unit of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to develop...

High-Throughput Genotyping.
November 1, 2000... EraGen Biosciences (12085 Research Dr., Alachua, FL; Tel: 904/462- 2000, Fax: 904/418-1680; Email: info@eragen.com, Website: www.eragen.com) will collaborate with the Novartis Agricultural Discovery Institute, Inc. (NADII, Madison, WI) to...

Plant-Derived Animal Vaccines.
November 1, 2000... Dow AgroSciences, (9330 Zionsville Rd., Indianapolis, IN 46268; Tel: 317/337-3000, Tel: 800/258-3033; Website: www.dowagro.com) and the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research (BTI, Ithaca, NY), have signed a multiyear research and...

INDUSTRY NEWS: Immune Response Sues over Publication.
November 1, 2000... Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and Harvard School of Public Health are reporting the largest randomized trial among HIV-1 infected persons conducted during the 1990s. The compound tested, Remune, an...

Venture Capital Remains Plentiful.
November 1, 2000... Venture Economics (VE) and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) said that the venture capital industry continues to invest in innovative companies at an extremely healthy rate. During the third quarter of 2000, $25.9 billion was...

CALENDAR.
November 1, 2000... November 13-15, 2000, Production and Economics of Biopharmaceuticals: Transcending the Limits of Manufacturing Medicines, La Jolla, CA. Contact: IBC USA Conferences; Tel: 508/616-5550, Fax: 508/616-5522. November 16-18, 2000, 4th Annual...