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Tag Health & medicine

Decoding protein structures helps illuminate cause of diabetes

May 15, 2007

Any photographer can vouch for the difficulty of capturing a clear picture of a moving target. When it comes to molecules, however, sometimes the motion is exactly what scientists want to see.

Food science students get taste of big leagues with Miller Park internship

May 3, 2007

It's a Milwaukee Brewers fan's dream: Spend the summer at Miller Park, get paid to do it, and get some resume-building professional experience to boot. This month, UW–Madison seniors Maureen Riley and Hannah Buchen begin summer internships with Milwaukee Sportservice, the company that provides food, beverage and retail services to Milwaukee's Miller Park.

Fishing for new anti-inflammatory, cancer drugs

April 10, 2007

Though cell movement and migration in the body play a central role in mediating injury and disease, including inflammatory responses and cancer metastasis, drugs designed to stifle cells’ nomadic tendencies are scarce. A new interdisciplinary research project funded by the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery seed grant program seeks to develop a novel drug-discovery process that may start to fill this gap.

Researchers seek early detection for hard-to-diagnose disease

April 10, 2007

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is characterized by infertility due to anovulation, abnormal secretion of androgens and other hormones, and insulin resistance. PCOS is the most common female endocrine disorder, affecting 4-7 percent of women in their reproductive years — the syndrome accounts for 75 percent of all anovulations. PCOS has staggering adverse physiological, psychological and financial consequences for women’s reproductive health.

In quest for less risky drugs, scientists listen to neurons

March 27, 2007

Since the 1950s, doctors have been ordering medications such as Ritalin to ease symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and prescriptions now number in the millions. Still, though highly effective, so-called “psychostimulant” drugs are not without risks, leaving many seeking safer alternatives, especially for children.

Ultrathin films deliver DNA as possible gene therapy tool

March 26, 2007

Gene therapy - the idea of using genetic instructions rather than drugs to treat disease - has tickled scientists' imaginations for decades, but is not yet a viable therapeutic method. One sizeable hurdle is getting the right genes into the right place at the right time.

Breaching a gateway to the cell, drug discovery

March 13, 2007

With support from the Discovery Seed Grant Program, Wisconsin scientists are poised to bring a novel approach to finding new medicines by deploying the atomic force microscope — the foremost tool of the nanotechnologist — to screen agents as they dock with critical cell receptors.

Nanoscale packaging could aid delivery of cancer-fighting drugs

February 15, 2007

A University of Wisconsin–Madison pharmacy professor aims to improve the delivery of cancer-fighting drugs by targeting them more selectively to tumors and boosting their solubility in water.

Fragile X protein may play role in Alzheimer’s disease

February 13, 2007

A brain afflicted by severe Alzheimer's disease is a sad sight, a wreck of tangled neural connections and organic rubble as the lingering evidence of a fierce internal battle. A new study has now uncovered an unexpected link between this devastating neural degeneration and a protein whose absence causes a different neurological disease - the inherited mental retardation disorder called fragile X syndrome.

Dieting meets DNA: Nutrition gets personal in new studies

November 15, 2006

Ushering nutritional science into the biotech age, UW–Madison researchers are exploring the complex interactions between food and genes to uncover new modes of disease prevention, drug development and, eventually, personalized diet advice tailored to one’s DNA.

Illuminating Alzheimer’s: Research sheds light on creatine’s presence in brain

December 21, 2005

A team of Canadian and American scientists working at the UW–Madison Synchrotron Radiation Center reports the first-ever finding of elevated levels of creatine — the newly discovered agent of Alzheimer's disease - in brain tissue.