A new awareness campaign warns of the dangers of improper cooling and handling of laboratory samples.

Mill Valley, California: Scientists working with laboratory samples are accustomed to having to control for many variables, but a new awareness campaign led by biotechnology firm BioCision aims to reduce deterioration of samples as a result of another potential threat in the lab--inconsistent sample temperature during cooling and handling.

The campaign, called Scientists Against Sample Abuse (SASA), takes a humorous approach to a serious issue that’s garnering more attention recently within the scientific community.

Imperial College London researchers have discovered a new benefit for a compound that has been prescribed by practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine for more than 1000 years. Before modern production techniques from pharmaceutical companies allowed the compound to be produced and purified in the lab, Ursodeoxycholic acid ( or UDCA), was found in bear bile.

Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute had some unexpected findings when searching for genes that influence the amount of amyloid that deposits as brain plaques in Alzheimer's disease. Through an extensive gene hunt, the team identified three candidate genes that seemed to offer protection in mice from brain amyloid accumulation and deposition.

Researchers have produced a lasting anti-cocaine immunity in mice by giving them a safe vaccine that combines bits of the common cold virus with a particle that mimics cocaine.

In their study, published Jan. 4 in the online edition of Molecular Therapy and funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the researchers say this novel strategy might be the first to offer cocaine addicts a fairly simple way to break and reverse their habit, and it might also be useful in treating other addictions, such as to nicotine, heroin and other opiates.

In a report at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, the team of stalwart frog-fanciers described enlisting colleagues worldwide to ship secretions from hundreds of promising frog skins to their laboratory in the United Arab Emirates. Using that amphibious treasure trove, they identified more than 100 antibiotic substances in the skins of different frog species from around the world. One even fights “Iraqibacter,” the bacterium responsible for drug-resistant infections in wounded soldiers returning from Iraq.

Michael Conlon, Ph.D., who reported on the research, noted that the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria, which have the ability to shrug off conventional antibiotics, is a growing problem worldwide. As a result, patients need new types of antibiotics to replace drugs that no longer work.

Researchers from Loyola University have identified six (6) individual amino acids, located in a little-studied region of the TRIM5a protein, that appear to give the protein the ability to destroy HIV in rhesus monkeys.

The finding could lead to new TRIM5a-based treatments that would knock out HIV in humans, said senior researcher Edward M. Campbell, PhD, of Loyola University Health System.

This brief discussion of how to take the next steps in Alzheimer's prevention and treatment is hosted by Terry Moran of ABC Nightline, as part of the Rock Stars of Science series. The discussion revolves around the path forward for idea sharing, the need for funding commitments that are longer then 5 years, and logistics behind pairing research insights with clinical trials.

An interesting paper from May 10th, the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reports on research from Vanderbilt University that used a "reporter molecule" and a custom camera equipped monitoring station for the monitoring of cell division division over a long period of time. What they discovered was the biological clock wasn't regulating cell division in their test cells. This implies that there is an opportunity to reactivate the biological clock in tumors with drug therapy, there by reducing growth rates.

Professor Gunter von Minckwitz, from the German Breast Group Forschungs GmBH, Neu-Isenburg set out to investigate the expression of a protein, known as poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase - or PARP, in various hormone receptor subtypes of early breast cancer, with the hopes of predicting a total response to chemotherapy given before surgery.

Dr. Cornelia de Moor and her research team from The University of Nottingham have devised a new method for investigating a novel cancer drug called cordycepin - originally derived from the mushroom, Cordyceps. This rare, and strange parasitic fungus, grows on caterpillars - and has long been used as a ingredient in Chinese medicines.