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.

Finding and treating a tumor without disturbing normal tissue presents challenges -- sometimes the most effective therapies can be invasive and harsh.

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have devised a way they might deliver the right therapy directly to tumors using special molecules, called aptamers, which specifically bind to living tumor tissue.

A new way for scientists to interact with and understand the structure of
important biological molecules critical to human health is now available. Called
iSee, it’s now possible to interactively fly over, zoom into and dive through 3D
visualisations of these molecules in atomic detail.
 

Scientists recently discovered that a cyanobacteria, collected off the coast of Papua New Guinea, produces a compound with a structure that has never before been seen in biomedicine.

Researchers at the Jewish General Hospital Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research and McGill University in Montreal have used a new immune-suppressing treatment to completely reverse multiple sclerosis (MS) in mice - sending the autoimmune disease into remission.