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. Several studies have shown that lipid peroxidation stimulates collagen production in fibroblasts and hepatic stellate cells (HSC), and plays an important role in the development of liver fibrosis. Hepatoprotective effects of green tea against carbon tetrachloride, cholestasis and alcohol induced liver fibrosis were reported in many studies. However, the hepatoprotective effect of green tea in dimethylnitrosamine (DMN)-induced models has not been studied. http://www.physorg.com/news177760503.html Medicine & Health Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:20:18 EST news177760503 (PhysOrg.com) -- Mike Gibson, chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at Michigan Technological University, has spent most of his professional life trying to better understand genetic metabolic disorders that arise in children. With that knowledge, he is working to develop treatments in mice--including liver-cell transplants--that could one day be used to treat a variety of liver-based illnesses in people. http://www.physorg.com/news174291354.html Medicine & Health Fri, 09 Oct 2009 07:40:01 EST news174291354 A team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers has developed an innovative way to culture liver cells for drug toxicity screening. In a report to be published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that has been released online, the investigators describe how liver cells grown in a high-oxygen environment and in a culture medium free of animal-derived serum quickly begin to function as they do within the liver. http://www.physorg.com/news171127242.html Medicine & Health Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:10:04 EST news171127242 Viruses need living cells for replication and production of virus progeny. Thus far, antiviral therapy primarily targets viral factors but often induces therapy resistance. New improved therapies attempt to targets cellular factors that are essential for viral replication. http://www.physorg.com/news169473882.html Medicine & Health Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:20:01 EST news169473882 (PhysOrg.com) -- Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have substantially improved the odds of successfully reprogramming differentiated cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) by blocking the activity of the gene that instructs the cells to stop dividing. http://www.physorg.com/news169136061.html Biology Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:00:01 EST news169136061 The role of a protein called XIAP in the regulation of cell death has been identified by Walter and Eliza Hall Institute researchers and has led them to recommend caution when drugs called IAP inhibitors are used to treat cancer patients with underlying liver conditions. http://www.physorg.com/news167488280.html Medicine & Health Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:31:52 EST news167488280 Two genes may contribute to chemotherapy resistance in drugs like 5-fluorouracil, which is used in liver cancer treatment, according to Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center researchers. http://www.physorg.com/news167325348.html Medicine & Health Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:16:45 EST news167325348 Scientists at Singapore's Bioprocessing Technology Institute (BTI) have made a novel discovery about how the gene, "Fas-apoptosis inhibitory molecule" (FAIM), protects both immune and liver cells from apoptosis, or programmed cell death. http://www.physorg.com/news165825938.html Medicine & Health Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:46:05 EST news165825938 In recent years, obesity has taken on epidemic proportions in developed nations, contributing significantly to major medical problems, early death and rising health care costs. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates, at least a quarter of all American adults and more than 15 percent of children and adolescents are obese. http://www.physorg.com/news163165465.html Medicine & Health Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:45:29 EST news163165465 New combinations of agents based on the oldest synthetic malaria drug, the methylene blue stain, can curb the spread of malaria parasites and make a significant contribution to the long-term eradication called for by the international "Roll Back Malaria Initiative." In a study on 160 children with malaria in Burkina Faso, specialists in tropical medicine from the Heidelberg University Hospital have shown that in combination with newer malaria drugs, methylene blue prevents the malaria pathogen in infected persons from being re-ingested by mosquitoes and then transmitted to others and is thus twice as effective as the standard therapy. The results of the study were published in May 2009 in the online journal PLoS One. http://www.physorg.com/news162034412.html Medicine & Health Wed, 20 May 2009 10:33:57 EST news162034412 Research from the Johns Hopkins Children's Center reveals that the drug most commonly used in type 2 diabetics who don't need insulin works on a much more basic level than once thought, treating persistently elevated blood sugar - the hallmark of type 2 diabetes - by regulating the genes that control its production. http://www.physorg.com/news161527158.html Medicine & Health Thu, 14 May 2009 13:39:55 EST news161527158 A team of researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Engineering in Medicine (MGH-CEM) has found the first evidence of cell-to-cell communication by amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, rather than by known protein signaling agents such as growth factors or cytokines. Their report will appear in an upcoming issue of the FASEB Journal and has been released online. http://www.physorg.com/news157987616.html Medicine & Health Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:27:18 EST news157987616 More than five years ago, Dr. Lawrence C.B. Chan and colleagues in his Baylor College of Medicine laboratory cured mice with type 1 diabetes by using a gene to induce liver cells to make insulin. http://www.physorg.com/news156432110.html Medicine & Health Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:22:31 EST news156432110 Starting with the tiny fruit fly and then moving into mice and humans, researchers at VIB and K. U. Leuven show that expression of the same gene suppresses cancer in all three organisms. Reciprocally, switching off the gene - called Ato in flies and ATOH1 in mammals - leads to cancer. The authors show there is a good chance that the gene can be switched on again with a drug. They report their findings in two papers in the leading online open access journal PLoS Biology. http://www.physorg.com/news154618409.html Medicine & Health Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:33:57 EST news154618409 During its career, the potentially fatal hepatitis C virus has banked its success on a rather unusual strategy: its limitations. Its inability to infect animals other than humans and chimpanzees has severely hampered scientists in developing a useful small animal model for the disease. But now, in a breakthrough to be published in the January 29 advance online issue of Nature, Rockefeller University scientists have identified a protein that allows the virus to enter mouse cells, a finding that represents the clearest path yet for developing a much-needed vaccine as well as tailored treatments for the 170 million people across the globe living with the tenacious, insidious and rapidly changing virus. http://www.physorg.com/news152386635.html Medicine & Health Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:37:48 EST news152386635 Just after 5 p.m. doors rattle shut and feet begin to shuffle past the narrow lab where Karim Si-Tayeb sits hunched over a microscope, all but invisible to the scientists leaving the Medical College of Wisconsin. Si-Tayeb has already worked eight hours and will work five more, eyes locked on the living cells in his care. Under the microscope, their tiny colonies resemble constellations of tightly packed stars. They carry his ambition. http://www.physorg.com/news150295895.html Biology Sun, 04 Jan 2009 12:51:35 EST news150295895 A novel protein marker has been found that identifies rare adult liver stem cells, whose ability to regenerate injured liver tissue has the potential for cell-replacement therapy. For the first time, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine led by Linda Greenbaum, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, have demonstrated that cells expressing the marker can differentiate into both liver cells and cells that line the bile duct. http://www.physorg.com/news145708384.html Medicine & Health Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:33:04 EST news145708384 Although post-reproductive life in humans is often associated with decline and a loss of powers, an analogous state in certain cells -- called senescence -- is proving to be one of ironic potency. Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) today reported that a particular class of senescent liver cells orchestrates a sequence of events in living mice that can limit fibrosis, a natural response of the liver to acute damage. http://www.physorg.com/news138541727.html Medicine & Health Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:48:47 EST news138541727 A stable form of cell-cycle arrest known to offer potent protection against cancer also limits liver fibrosis, a condition characterized by an excess of fibrous tissue, according to a new report in the August 22nd Cell, a Cell Press publication. Triggered by chronic liver damage produced by hepatitis infection, alcohol abuse, or fatty liver disease, liver fibrosis can lead to cirrhosis, a major health problem worldwide and the 12th most common cause of death in the United States. http://www.physorg.com/news138541591.html Medicine & Health Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:46:31 EST news138541591 Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered that a protein called FOXA2 controls genes that maintain the proper level of bile in the liver. FOXA2 may become the focus for new therapies to treat diseases that involve the regulation of bile salts. The study was published online this week in Nature Medicine. http://www.physorg.com/news136808930.html Medicine & Health Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:28:50 EST news136808930