Research News

Plastic is well-known for sticking around in the environment for years without breaking down, contributing significantly to litter and landfills. But scientists have now discovered that bacteria from the guts of a worm known to munch on food packaging can degrade polyethylene, the most common plastic. Reported in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology, the finding could lead to new ways to help get rid of the otherwise persistent waste, the scientists say.

An experimental vaccine to prevent Ebola virus disease was well-tolerated and produced immune system responses in all 20 healthy adults who received it in a phase 1 clinical trial conducted by researchers from the National Institutes of Health. The candidate vaccine, which was co-developed by the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), was tested at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. The interim results are reported online in advance of print in the New England Journal of Medicine.

(18th November, 2014) ; MIT engineers have transformed the genome of the bacterium E. coli into a long-term storage device for memory. They envision that this stable, erasable, and easy-to-retrieve memory will be well suited for applications such as sensors for environmental and medical monitoring.

(17th November, 2014; Business Wire India); We are all aware of the dangers of a heart attack, few are aware of an equally dangerous condition called “Leg Attacks”. Quite similar to heart attacks, leg attacks occur when there are blockages in the blood vessels of the leg. This condition is exacerbated in Diabetics, those aged above 50 and smokers who are at a higher risk of developing blockages or peripheral vascular diseases. Leg attack is one of the extreme conditions arising from blockages in the vessels of the limbs which can lead to non healing ulcer even limb amputation. Most doctors agree that despite the severity of leg attacks, most cases remain undiagnosed till the last stage due to a lack of awareness of the disease and its symptoms.

(12th November, 2014); Brodalumab, a novel psoriasis drug from colloboration of Amgen and Astrazeneca shown superior results in compare to Stelara® (ustekinumab) in head to head trials. The trial conducated on moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis which met its primary endpoints when compared with both Stelara and placebo at week 12. Brodalumab was shown to be superior to Stelara on the primary endpoint of achieving total clearance of skin disease, as measured by the Psoriasis Area Severity Index (PASI 100).

An experimental drug aimed at treating a common liver disease showed promising results and potential problems in a multicenter clinical trial funded by the National Institutes of Health. The FLINT study found that people with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) who took obeticholic acid (OCA) had improved liver health during that period, including decreased inflammation and fat in the liver and decreased body weight versus people receiving a placebo. OCA was also associated with increases in itching and total cholesterol.

(11th November, 2014); The explosive organic compound pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) might one day allow pregnant women to protect their daughters from developing high blood pressure (BP) before they’re born, according to an animal study published in the American Heart Association’s journal Hypertension.

(10th November, 2014); All multicellular creatures are descended from single-celled organisms. The leap from unicellularity to multicellularity is possible only if the originally independent cells collaborate. So-called cheating cells that exploit the cooperation of others are considered a major obstacle. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön, Germany, together with researchers from New Zealand and the USA, have observed in real time the evolution of simple self-reproducing groups of cells from previously individual cells.

(6th November, 2014); New Danish-led research suggests that signs of brain aging can be postponed in mice if placed on a high-fat diet. In the long term, this opens the possibility of treatment of children suffering from premature aging and patients with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. The research project is headed by the Center for Healthy Aging, University of Copenhagen and the National Institute of Health.

(15th October, 2014); Harvard researchers announced on last Thursday that they have made a giant leap forward in the quest to find a truly effective treatment for type 1 diabetes, a condition that affects an estimated 3 million Americans at a cost of about $15 billion annually with human embryonic stem cells as a starting point, the scientists are for the first time able to produce, in the kind of massive quantities needed for cell transplantation and pharmaceutical purposes, human insulin-producing beta cells equivalent in most every way to normally functioning beta cells.