Chili Pepper Compound Can Bring Pain Relief

From the FMS News Desk of Jeanne Hambleton COURTESY usnews.com Health Day – Monday March 16 Capsaicin works on nerves to ease joint discomfort, scientists say (HealthDay News) – University of Buffalo scientists say they have found how capsaicin, the compound that gives chili peppers their fiery flavor, also works to relieve joint and muscle [...]

Mouse genome will help identify causes of environmental disease

Research on the DNA of 15 mouse strains commonly used in biomedical studies is expected to help scientists determine the genes related to susceptibility to environmental disease. The body of data is now publicly available in a catalog of genetic variants, which displays the data as a mouse haplotype map, a tool that separates chromosomes [...]

Genetics of chronic pain states.

Buskila D. Department of Medicine H, Soroka Medical Center and Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva, P.O.B 151, Israel 84101. Chronic pain states are common in the general population. Genetic factors can explain a significant amount of the variability in the perception of pain. Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) and related conditions are syndromes [...]

Cataloging the Structural Variations in Human Genetics

Contact: Jim Keeley keeleyj@hhmi.org 301-215-8858 Howard Hughes Medical Institute May 10, 2007 A major new effort to uncover the medium- and large-scale genetic differences between humans may soon reveal DNA sequences that contribute to a wide range of diseases, according to a paper by Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Evan Eichler and 17 colleagues published [...]

University of Pittsburgh discovers genetic ‘shut down’ trigger in healthy immune cells

Contact: Michele Baum baummd@upmc.edu 412-647-3555 University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences Discovery could have significant implications for targeting cancer, infection treatments PITTSBURGH, May 9 — A fundamental genetic mechanism that shuts down an important gene in healthy immune system cells has been discovered that could one day lead to new therapies against infections, [...]

Scientists encourage cells to make a meal of Huntington’s disease

Contact: Craig Brierley c.brierley@wellcome.ac.uk 44-207-611-7329 Wellcome Trust Scientists have developed a novel strategy for tackling neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington’s disease: encouraging an individual’s own cells to “eat” the malformed proteins that lead to the disease. Huntington’s disease is one of a number of degenerative diseases marked by clumps of malformed protein in brain cells. [...]

Scripps research team sheds light on long-sought cold sensation gene

Contact: Marisela Chevez mchevez@scripps.edu 858-784-2171 Scripps Research Institute Discovery could lead to new treatments to ease pain The discovery, reported in the May 3 issue of the journal Neuron, might one day lead to the development of drugs that induce cold sensation as an analgesic, or block it to prevent certain forms of chronic pain [...]

‘Insulator’ helps silence genes in dormant herpes virus

Contact: Franklin Hoke hoke@wistar.org 215-898-3716 The Wistar Institute (Philadelphia – May 2, 2007) – By adulthood, most people have suffered at least one bout of painful cold sores brought on by the Herpes simplex virus 1, also known as HSV-1. After the initial infection, the virus usually remains in the body, hiding out in nearby [...]

Scientists find new agent to fight genetic disorders — Zorro-Locked Nucleic Acid

Contact: Cody Mooneyhan cmooneyhan@faseb.org 301-634-7104 Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology A study to appear in the June 2007 issue of The FASEB Journal describes a new agent, called “Zorro-LNA,” which has the potential to stop genetic disorders in their tracks. In the study, researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, describe how [...]

Information processing in the central nervous system: the signalling system controlling movement

Contact: Melanie Thomson melanie.thomson@oxon.blackwellpublishing.com 44-018-654-76270 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Research by Renee Theiss, Jason Kuo and C J Heckman, which has just been published in The Journal of Physiology, throws light on how information is processed in the Central Nervous System (CNS) to drive movement. The findings are relevant to understanding mechanisms underlying movement and disorders [...]