Press monitoring
Staphylococcus Aureus: Why It Just Gets Up Your Nose
2.1.2013 | Press monitoring
A collaboration between researchers at the School of Biochemistry and Immunology and the Department of Microbiology at Trinity College Dublin has identified a mechanism by which the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) colonizes our nasal passages. The study, published in the open access journal PLOS Pathogens, shows for the first time that...
Toward a Pill to Enable Celiac Patients to Eat Foods Containing Gluten
28.12.2012 | Press monitoring
Scientists are reporting an advance toward development of a pill that could become celiac disease's counterpart to the lactase pills that people with lactose intolerance can take to eat dairy products without risking digestive upsets. Currently, the only treatment is a gluten-free diet. However, the scientists reasoned that if an enzyme could...
Sustainable Way to Make a Prized Fragrance Ingredient
27.12.2012 | Press monitoring
Published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the advance enables cultures of bacteria to produce a substitute for natural ambergris, which sells for hundreds of dollars an ounce. With sperm whales an endangered species, and natural ambergris not used in perfumes in the U.S., perfume makers have turned to substitutes. One is made...
Vegetable Compound Could Become Ingredient to Treating Leukemia
19.12.2012 | Press monitoring
A concentrated form of a compound called sulforaphane found in broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables has been shown to reduce the number of acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells in the lab setting, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine. Lacorazza and his colleagues focused on purified sulforaphane, a natural compound found in...
Antibiotic-Eating Bug Unearthed in Soil: Newly Discovered Bacterium Degrades an Antibiotic Both to Protect Itself and Get Nutrition
18.12.2012 | Press monitoring
Now new research has uncovered another possible mechanism of antibiotic "resistance" in soil. Canadian and French scientists report on a soil bacterium that breaks down the common veterinary antibiotic, sulfamethazine, and uses it for growth. This is the first report of a soil microorganism that degrades an antibiotic both to protect itself...
Higher Carbon Dioxide Levels Mean Poorer Wheat Quality
17.12.2012 | Press monitoring
Rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have a negative impact on the protein content of wheat grain and thus its nutritional quality. This is the finding of researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, in a recently published study in the journal Global Change Biology. Elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide stimulate the...
Chemists Use Plant Extract in Eco-Friendly, Sustainable Lithium-Ion Battery
14.12.2012 | Press monitoring
Chemists from The City College of New York teamed with researchers from Rice University and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory to develop a non-toxic and sustainable lithium-ion battery powered by purpurin, a dye extracted from the roots of the madder plant (Rubia species). Fortunately, biologically based color molecules, like purpurin and its...
Biologists Engineer Algae to Make Complex Anti-Cancer Designer Drug
12.12.2012 | Press monitoring
Biologists at UC San Diego have succeeded in genetically engineering algae to produce a complex and expensive human therapeutic drug used to treat cancer. Their achievement, detailed in a paper in this week's early online issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, opens the door for making these and other "designer" proteins...
New Injectable Gels Toughen Up After Entering the Body
10.12.2012 | Press monitoring
Gels that can be injected into the body, carrying drugs or cells that regenerate damaged tissue, hold promise for treating many types of disease, including cancer. However, these injectable gels don't always maintain their solid structure once inside the body. MIT chemical engineers have now designed an injectable gel that responds to the...
Eating More Legumes May Improve Glycemic Control, Lower Estimated Heart Disease Risk
7.12.2012 | Press monitoring
Eating more legumes (such as beans, chickpeas or lentils) as part of a low-glycemic index diet appears to improve glycemic control and reduce estimated coronary heart disease (CHD) risk in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM), according to a report of a randomized controlled trial published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, a...
