Research News

Scientists have developed a new technique that manipulates bacteria to produce up to 30-fold more quantities of chemicals.

The advance is a big step toward a future in which the predominant chemical factories of the world are colonies of genetically engineered bacteria.

Exercise may help people with Parkinson's disease improve their balance, ability to move around and quality of life, according to a new study. In the study, 231 people with Parkinson's disease either received their usual care or took part in an exercise programme of 40 to 60 minutes of balance and leg strengthening exercises three times a week for six months.

Emotional eating among Indians, especially among urban population is on the rise, a biochemist told the 102^nd Indian Science Congress.

Glycotherapy is useful for those with drug resistant tumour. Less toxification is the beauty of this therapy. Tunicamycin is an antibiotic being used in the therapy. It blocks cell cycle progression and targets only proliferating cells," Professor Dipak K Banerjee at the Department of Biochemistry, School of Medicine, University of Puerto Rico in USA said.

Three-year outcomes from an ongoing clinical trial suggest that high-dose immunosuppressive therapy followed by transplantation of a person's own blood-forming stem cells may induce sustained remission in some people with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). RRMS is the most common form of MS, a progressive autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks the brain and spinal cord. The trial is funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and conducted by the NIAID-funded Immune Tolerance Network (ITN).

Results of an early-stage clinical trial of two experimental vaccines against Ebola and Marburg viruses—the first to be completed in an African country—showed that they were safe and induced immune responses in healthy Ugandan adult volunteers.

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Ibuprofen, a common over-the-counter drug used to relieve pain and fever, could hold the keys to a longer healthier life, according to a study by researchers at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. Publishing in PLoS Genetics on December 18th, scientists showed that regular doses of ibuprofen extended the lifespan of yeast, worms and fruit flies.

In two new studies, international research teams including NIAID scientists describe how certain genetic mutations make malaria-causing parasites resistant to artemisinin, a key drug for treating the disease. The findings are published in the Dec. 11, 2014, online issue of Science.

Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers have taken what they describe as “the first step toward a pill that can replace the treadmill” for the control of obesity, though that shift, of course, would not provide all of the many benefits of exercise.

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One of the reasons cancer is so deadly is that it can evade attack from the body's immune system, which allows tumors to flourish and spread. Scientists can try to induce the immune system, known as immunotherapy, to go into attack mode to fight cancer and to build long lasting immune resistance to cancer cells. Now, researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) show a non-surgical injection of programmable biomaterial that spontaneously assembles in vivo into a 3D structure could fight and even help prevent cancer and also infectious disease such as HIV. Their findings are reported in Nature Biotechnology.