Life Sciences & Biotechnology Update articles from February 1999

Life Sciences & Biotechnology Update archives from February 1999

GULF WAR ILLNESS: RESEARCH, MEDICAL SURVEILLANCE, AND CLINICAL MONITORING.
February 1, 1999... This (GAO) report concerns Gulf War illness. During service associated with the Gulf War, many of the approximately 700,000 veterans might have been exposed to a variety of potentially hazardous substances. These substances include: compounds...

JET-LAG SYNDROME: THE EFFECT OF LIGHT AND ACTIVITY ON PHASE-SHIFTING OF THE HUMAN CIRCADIAN CLOCK.
February 1, 1999... The goals of this (University of Chicago) research are to delineate the basic mechanisms controlling the human circadian clock, and to derive practical procedures to rapidly phase-shift human rhythms in real-life situations. The focus is on...

AEROMEDICAL ASPECTS OF MELATONIN.
February 1, 1999... This (Federal Aviation Administration) report focuses on melatonin, a pineal hormone present in the blood of humans and other species. Melatonin has a distinct diurnal variation in its biosynthesis and, therefore, in its concentration. This...

USING ULTRASOUND TO NONINVASIVELY MEASURE INTRACRANIAL VOLUME AND PRESSURE.
February 1, 1999... This (NASA) report focuses on the use of ultrasound to noninvasively measure intracranial volume and pressure. Prevention of secondary brain injuries following head trauma can be accomplished most easily when intracranial pressure (ICP) is...

THE ROLE OF NEUROTROPHIC FACTORS IN ATTENUATING NEURONAL INJURY AFTER BRAIN TRAUMA.
February 1, 1999... The long term objective of this (University of Kentucky Research Foundation) study is to improve functional outcome following traumatic brain injury (TBI) by enhancing the mechanisms that are neuroprotective. The study investigates the role of...

CERVICAL SPINAL MOTION DURING OROTRACHEAL INTUBATION.
February 1, 1999... This (University of Iowa) report concerns cervical spinal motion during orotrachael intubation. A total of 16 fresh human cadavers were intubated while recording cervical motion using a cine fluoroscopic technique. Segmental cervical motion...

CHRONIC RADIATION SICKNESS AMONG RESIDENTS ALONG THE TECHA RIVER IN RUSSIA.
February 1, 1999... This (Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute) report was prepared at the Urals Research Center for Radiation Medicine, Chelyabinsk, Russia, under a contractual agreement with the Defense Nuclear Agency. It presents a summary of research...

IS THERE A CORRELATION BETWEEN AUTONOMY AND THE RECOGNITION OF ALCOHOLISM?
February 1, 1999... This (Air Force Institute of Technology) thesis concerns the association between military wives' autonomy and their recognition of alcoholism. Research on alcoholism recognizes that alcoholism negatively affects family members. Wives of...

PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL MEASURES OF ACUTE CHEMICAL NEUROTOXICITY.
February 1, 1999... This (Department of the Interior) report concerns the development of physiological and behavioral measures of acute chemical neurotoxicity. U.S. military personnel may be exposed to a wide variety of potentially toxic chemicals; examples...

MICROBIAL PATHOGENESIS AND DEFENSE OF THE HOST.
February 1, 1999... This (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) report focuses on microbial pathogenesis and host defense. Understanding microbial pathogenesis demands a detailed knowledge of the host response as well as the pathogen itself, and requires an...

DRUG RESISTANCE IN MALARIA.
February 1, 1999... Drug resistance has emerged as a major problem in the treatment of all microbial agents, and in many cancer chemotherapies. Drug resistance has become particularly acute in malaria, where resistance to chloroquine, the cheapest and most...

MAMMOGRAPHY SCREENING, ATTITUDES, AND PERCEPTIONS AMONG AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN WITH A FAMILY HISTORY OF BREAST CANCER.
February 1, 1999... This (Duke University Medical Center) report makes comparisons between African-American women with and without a family history of breast cancer, with respect to: mammography screening; attitudes towards mammography screening; and perceptions...

ELECTROCHEMICAL TREATMENT OF BREAST CANCER USING DIRECT CURRENT.
February 1, 1999... This (City of Hope National Medical Center) report concerns a study of the electrochemical treatment (ECT) of breast cancer using the application of direct current. ECT is a promising new method that delivers direct current (dc) into tumor...

RADIATION EXPOSURE AND BREAST CANCER RISK AMONG BLACK AND WHITE WOMEN.
February 1, 1999... This (University of Washington) report addresses radiation exposure and breast cancer among black and white women. Predisposition to breast cancer is inherited as a genetic trait in some families. Thus far, a few highly penetrant genes...

DIAGNOSIS OF BREAST CANCER USING MICROVASCULATURE MAGNETIC RESONANCE.
February 1, 1999... This report from Canada (John P. Robarts Research Institute) details research directed toward developing new techniques for measuring tumor blood flow in human breast lesions using MRI. The first section of the report addresses the underlying...

USING THE INTERNET FOR BREAST CANCER EPIDEMIOLOGY.
February 1, 1999... This (University of Minnesota) report examines the feasibility of breast cancer epidemiology on the Internet. The revolution in information technology is demonstrated by the dramatic increase in use of the Internet. Use of E-mail and the...

ROLE OF A NOVEL SERINE PROTEASE-LIKE GENE, NES 1, IN BREAST CANCER.
February 1, 1999... This (New England Medical Center Hospital) report concerns studies to understand the biochemical mechanism of conversion of normal mammary epithelial cells (MECs) into tumorous cells. It identifies a novel serine protease-like gene, NES 1,...

REGULATION OF THE RELEASE OF GROWTH FACTOR BY PROTEASES INHIBITORS IN BREAST CANCER.
February 1, 1999... This (New York University Medical Center) report describes the cloning, sequencing, and properties of a potential TGFa-releasing protease present in human breast epithelial cells. Degenerate oligonucleotides based on the conserved sequences...

REGULATION OF MEMBRANE PROTEASES ASSOCIATED WITH BREAST CANCER.
February 1, 1999... This (Georgetown University) report concerns the regulation of membrane proteases associated with breast cancer. Seprase is a homodimeric 170 kDa integral membrane gelatinase whose expression correlates with the invasiveness of the human...

REGULATION AND EXPRESSION OF THE CELL ADHESION MOLECULE, CD44, IN HUMAN BREAST CANCER.
February 1, 1999... This (University of Pittsburgh) report concerns the expression and regulation of the cell adhesion molecule, CD44, in human breast cancer. The laboratory has recently devised two potential gene therapeutic approaches, the utilization of...

THE FUNCTION OF WILD AND MUTANT FORMS OF p53 IN BREAST CANCER.
February 1, 1999... The p53 tumor suppressor protein is a transcriptional activator, and its transcriptional activity is required for p53 tumor suppression. This (Columbia University) report shows that p53 markedly activates expression of cyclin DI, and the...

FUNCTION OF CELL-CYCLE-CONTROL PROTEINS IN BREAST CANCER.
February 1, 1999... This (Harvard Medical School) report concerns the function of cell-cycle-control proteins in breast cancer. Loss of the retinoblastoma tumor suppressor protein (pRb) can contribute to breast tumor formation. However, many breast tumors retain...

ASSOCIATION OF THE ESTROGEN RECEPTOR WITH THE NUCLEAR MATRIX IN HUMAN BREAST CANCER CELLS.
February 1, 1999... This research from Canada (University of Manitoba) studies the association of the estrogen receptor with the nuclear matrix, and identifies the nuclear matrix acceptor sites for the estrogen receptor. In transiently transfected ER negative...

INTERACTION OF TWO SIGNALING PATHWAYS IN BREAST TUMORIGENESIS: TGF-BETA VERSUS ESTRO0GEN RECEPTOR.
February 1, 1999... The overall goal of this (Duke University) research project is to explore the roles of TGF-Beta and components of its signaling pathways in the initiation, progression, and metastasis of breast adenocarcinomas, through an investigation of the...

SUBSTRATE-INDUCED CONFORMATIONAL STUDIES OF THE HORMONE-BINDING DOMAIN OF THE HUMAN BREAST CANCER ESTROGEN RECEPTOR BY FLUORINE NMR.
February 1, 1999... Estrogen has been shown to be involved in the progression of breast cancer, and the estrogen receptor (ER) has been implicated in reproductive cancers. This (Clarkson University) report addresses how the structure of the hormone-binding domain...

NITRIC ACID IN MAMMARY TUMOR PROGRESSION.
February 1, 1999... This study-report from Canada (University of Western Ontario) addresses nitric acid in mammary tumor progression. Nitric Oxide (NO) is a potent bioactive product of many normal cells and certain cancer cells. It has recently been shown that...

CELL CYCLE IN NORMAL AND MALIGNANT BREAST EPITHELIAL CELLS.
February 1, 1999... This (Scripps Research Institute) report addresses the cell cycle in normal and malignant breast epithelial cells. Breast cancer is a disease where breast epithelial cells become refractory to appropriate growth and differentiation signals....

THE HUMAN GENOME PROJECT.
February 1, 1999... This (MITRE Corp.) study reviews DOE-supported aspects of the U.S. Human Genome Project, the joint NIH/DOE program: to characterize all human genetic material; to discover the set of human genes; and to render them accessible for further...

CONFERENCE ON VISUAL PERCEPTION.
February 1, 1999... This translation from Finland (Helsinki University) contains a collection of abstracts of papers presented at a conference on visual perception (1998, Helsinki- Espoo, Finland). The subjects covered include: vision and brain dynamics;...

QUANTIFYING UNCERTAINTY IN HUMAN HEALTH-RISK ASSESSMENT.
February 1, 1999... This (Parsons Engineering Science Inc.) document is an introductory handbook aimed at: (1) identifying the appropriate use of probabilistic techniques for a site; and (2) methods by which probabilistic risk assessment can be used to quantify...