cell death

(Rutgers University) Scientists have known for years that seizures in patients with epilepsy cause progressive cell death in the brain.

What they did not know was why this was happening.That may change with a new line of research led by Professor Wilma Friedman of the Department of Biological Sciences at Rutgers University, Newark.

The research is funded by a recently awarded, four-year, $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

(Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute) Cancer uses devious means to evade treatment and survive. One prime example is the way tumors express anti-cell death (anti-apoptotic) proteins to resist chemotherapy and radiation.

However, the Pellecchia laboratory at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute has made two recent discoveries that may help curb these anti-apoptotic proteins and make current treatments more effective.

(University of Notre Dame) A new paper by researchers at the University of Notre Dame and Washington University School of Medicine describes important progress in using a synthetic probe to target dead and dying cells in mammary and prostate tumors in living animals

(University of Leicester) Medical Research Council scientists have made an important advance in understanding the biological processes involved when cells are prompted to die.

The work may help scientists to eventually develop new treatments for the many common diseases and conditions which occur when cell death goes wrong.

(Burnham Institute) Scientists at Burnham Institute for Medical Research have found that the Caspase-8 protein, long known to play a major role in promoting programmed cell death (apoptosis), helps relay signals that can cause cancer cells to proliferate, migrate and invade surrounding tissues.