http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Publishing in PLoS Pathogens, researchers at from the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson have found a novel mechanism by which drugs block HIV-1 from entering host cells. http://www.physorg.com/news178809016.html Medicine & Health Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:11:08 EST news178809016 Bacteria are quite creative when infecting the human organism. They invade cells, migrate through the body, avoid an immune response and misuse processes of the host cell for their own purposes. To this end every bacterium employs its own strategy. In collaboration with a British research group, structural biologists from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig, Germany, and the University of Bielefeld, Germany, have now elucidated one mechanism of Listeria bacteria. http://www.physorg.com/news178803891.html Biology Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:20:01 EST news178803891 (PhysOrg.com) -- Research into Alzheimer's disease seems an unlikely approach to yield a better way to fight urinary tract infections (UTIs), but that's what scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and elsewhere recently reported. http://www.physorg.com/news178359416.html Chemistry Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:20:01 EST news178359416 The AIDS virus inserts its genetic material into the genome of the infected cell. Scientists of the German Cancer Research Center have now shown for the first time that the virus almost entirely spares particular sites in the human genetic material in this process. This finding may be useful for developing new, specific AIDS drugs. http://www.physorg.com/news177247951.html Medicine & Health Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:50:02 EST news177247951 Infectious diseases currently cause about one-third of all human deaths worldwide, more than all forms of cancer combined. Advances in cell biology and microbial genetics have greatly enhanced understanding of the cause and mechanisms of infectious diseases. Researchers from Thomas Jefferson University, the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and Yale University reported in PLoS ONE, a way in which intracellular pathogens exploit the biological attributes of their hosts in order to escape destruction. http://www.physorg.com/news174400147.html Biology Sat, 10 Oct 2009 13:29:39 EST news174400147 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at Adaptimmune Limited and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, today announced the approval of an Investigational New Drug (IND) application from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and opening for enrollment of the first ever study using patients` cells carrying an engineered T cell receptor to treat HIV (SL9 HA-GAG-TCR). The trial may have important implications in the development of new treatments for HIV potentially slowing - or even preventing - the onset of AIDS. http://www.physorg.com/news174149785.html Medicine & Health Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:57:11 EST news174149785 Leishmania is a deadly parasitic disease that affects over 12 million people worldwide, with more than 2 million new cases reported every year. Until recently, scientists were unsure exactly how the parasite survives inside human cells. That mystery has now been solved according to a new study published in Science Signaling by a team led by Dr. Martin Olivier - a scientist at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) and McGill University. It is hoped the new study will lead to the development of the first prophylactic treatment for leishmania. http://www.physorg.com/news174052180.html Medicine & Health Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:20:02 EST news174052180 (PhysOrg.com) -- Viruses like Hepatitis C proliferate by tricking cellular machinery into manufacturing the parts for duplicate viral particles. http://www.physorg.com/news173549327.html Chemistry Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:09:14 EST news173549327 Researchers at the University of Leeds have discovered a previously unknown mechanism that allows the hepatitis C virus (HCV) to remain in the body for decades. http://www.physorg.com/news169741163.html Medicine & Health Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:19:51 EST news169741163 The influenza virus that wreaked worldwide havoc in 1918-1919 founded a viral dynasty that persists to this day, according to scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. In an article published online on June 29 by the New England Journal of Medicine, authors Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., Jeffery K. Taubenberger, M.D., Ph.D., and David M. Morens, M.D., argue that we have lived in an influenza pandemic era since 1918, and they describe how the novel 2009 H1N1 virus now circling the globe is yet another manifestation of this enduring viral family. http://www.physorg.com/news165515121.html Medicine & Health Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:10:01 EST news165515121 Viruses are molecular marauders, plundering cells for the resources they need to multiply. Of central importance for viruses is the ability to commandeer cellular gene expression machinery. Several human herpesviruses put the breaks on normal cellular gene expression to divert the associated enzymes and resources towards their own viral genes. Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), which causes several AIDS-associated cancers, has now been shown to do this in an unexpected way, using a process that is normally protective, called polyadenylation. http://www.physorg.com/news162625056.html Biology Wed, 27 May 2009 06:38:19 EST news162625056 Researchers in the "Molecular Infection Biology group" at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig and the Braunschweig Technical University could now demonstrate for the first time that bacteria of the Yersinia genus possess a unique protein thermometer - the protein RovA - which assists them in the infection process. http://www.physorg.com/news162040657.html Biology Wed, 20 May 2009 12:18:27 EST news162040657 For the first time UK scientists have shown what the food poisoning bug Salmonella feeds on to survive as it causes infection: glucose. http://www.physorg.com/news161956043.html Biology Tue, 19 May 2009 12:47:41 EST news161956043 Virginia Tech virologist Chris Roberts' goal is to develop a platform for a flu vaccine that allows rapid modifications to meet new strains of flu. http://www.physorg.com/news160662736.html Medicine & Health Mon, 04 May 2009 13:32:48 EST news160662736 (PhysOrg.com) -- An international team of researchers has determined key structural features of the largest known virus, findings that could help scientists studying how the simplest life evolved and whether the unusual virus causes any human diseases. http://www.physorg.com/news160143176.html Biology Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:14:08 EST news160143176 (PhysOrg.com) -- For the past decade, researchers have tried to tweak cells at the gene and nucleus level to reprogram their identity. Now, working on the idea that the signature of a cell is defined by molecules called messenger RNAs, which contain the chemical blueprint for how to make a protein, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, School of Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering have found another way to change one cell type into another. http://www.physorg.com/news159111087.html Biology Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:32:10 EST news159111087 A new study reveals the importance of adenylylation in the regulation of cell signaling from bacteria to higher organisms. The research, published by Cell Press in the April 10th issue of the journal Molecular Cell, provides new insight into bacterial pathogenesis and opens intriguing avenues for exploring post-translational modifications in eukaryotic cells. http://www.physorg.com/news158503513.html Biology Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:45:33 EST news158503513 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered that parasites hijack host-cell proteins to ensure their survival and proliferation, suggesting new ways to control the diseases they cause. The study, appearing this week online in Science, was led by Doron Greenbaum, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology in the Penn School of Medicine. http://www.physorg.com/news158050237.html Biology Sat, 04 Apr 2009 07:51:19 EST news158050237 Two University of Rhode Island scientists have revealed how a cancer causing protein is regulated by reactive oxygen species (ROS) -- a type of stress signal. Their findings provide new insight into how this protein normally behaves in human cells and may help in the design of drugs targeting specific cancers. http://www.physorg.com/news157287306.html Medicine & Health Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:55:43 EST news157287306 Certain bacteria have learned to manipulate the proportion of females and males in insect populations. Now Uppsala University researchers have mapped the entire genome of a bacterium that infects a close relative of the fruit fly. The findings, published in PNAS, reveal extremely high frequencies of gene exchange within this group of bacteria. In the future it is hoped that it will be possible to use sex-manipulating bacteria as environmentally friendly pesticides against harmful insects. http://www.physorg.com/news157201453.html Biology Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:04:42 EST news157201453 The bacterium Escherichia coli is part of the healthy human intestinal flora. However, E. coli also has pathogenic relatives that trigger diarrhea illnesses: enterohemorrhagic E.coli bacteria. During the course of an infection they infest the intestinal mucosa, causing injury in the process, in contrast to benign bacteria. http://www.physorg.com/news156686308.html Biology Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:02:20 EST news156686308 (PhysOrg.com) -- If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Rice University's precise new image of a virus' protective coat is seriously undervalued. More than three years in the making, the image contains some 5 million atoms -- each in precisely the right place -- and it could help scientists find better ways to both fight viral infections and design new gene therapies. http://www.physorg.com/news154027398.html Chemistry Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:24:13 EST news154027398 Influenza is and remains a disease to reckon with. Seasonal epidemics around the world kill several hundred thousand people every year. In the light of looming pandemics if bird flu strains develop the ability to infect humans easily, new drugs and vaccines are desperately sought. Researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the joint Unit of Virus Host-Cell Interaction (UVHCI) of EMBL, the University Joseph Fourier (UJF) and the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), in Grenoble, France, have now precisely defined an important drug target in influenza. In this week's Nature they publish a high-resolution image of a crucial protein domain that allows the virus to hijack human cells and multiply in them. http://www.physorg.com/news152976647.html Biology Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:31:24 EST news152976647 Whether condoms or abstinence, most efforts to prevent sexually transmitted diseases have a common logic: keep the pathogen out of your body altogether. While this approach is certainly reasonable enough, it doesn't help the countless people worldwide who, for a number of reasons, are not in a position to control their sexual circumstances. http://www.physorg.com/news151765411.html Medicine & Health Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:04:37 EST news151765411 A previously unknown regulatory step during human immunodeficiency (HIV) replication provides a potentially valuable new target for HIV/AIDS therapy, report researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. http://www.physorg.com/news145861228.html Medicine & Health Fri, 14 Nov 2008 05:00:28 EST news145861228 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new study suggests that bacteria-infecting viruses - called phages - can make collective decisions about whether to kill host cells immediately after infection or enter a latent state to remain within the host cell. http://www.physorg.com/news140711625.html Biology Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:33:45 EST news140711625