Category Health/Medical

A team of scientists from Scripps Research has conducted promising early tests of a new strategy that might one day be used to prevent or treat type 2 diabetes.

The scientists, whose results are reported in Nature Communications, tested an experimental compound called IXA4 in obese mice. They showed that the compound activates a natural signaling pathway that protects the animals from harmful, obesity-driven metabolic changes that would normally lead to diabetes.

“We were able to activate this pathway in both the liver and the pancreas with this one compound, and that added up to a significant overall improvement in metabolic health of obese animals,” says Scripps Research’s Luke Wiseman, Ph.D.

“This is the first time anyone has shown that a small molecule activating this pat...

A team co-led by scientists at Scripps Research has found evidence that a compound contained in the medicinal and culinary herb rosemary could be a two-pronged weapon against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The scientists, in experiments described in a paper published January 6, 2022 in the journal Antioxidants, found that the compound, carnosic acid, can block the interaction between the SARS-CoV-2 outer “spike” protein and the receptor protein, ACE2, which the virus uses to gain entry to cells.

The team also presented evidence, and reviewed evidence from prior studies, that carnosic acid has a separate effect in inhibiting a powerful inflammatory pathway—a pathway that is active in severe COVID-19 ...

A protein that masterminds the way DNA is wrapped within chromosomes has a major role in the healthy functioning of blood stem cells, which produce all blood cells in the body, according to a new study from researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine.

The protein, known as histone H3.3, organizes the spool-like structures around which DNA is wrapped in plants, animals and most other organisms. Histones enable DNA to be tightly compacted, and serve as platforms for small chemical modifications – known as epigenetic modifications – that can loosen or tighten the wrapped DNA to control local gene activity.

The study, which appeared Dec. 27 in Nature Cell Biology, examined H3...

A University of South Florida Health (USF Health) preclinical study offers molecular insight into how activated protein C (APC) may improve aging patients’ tolerance to reperfusion injury — a potentially adverse effect of treatment for ischemic heart disease.

The research, published online Dec. 21 in Circulation Research, suggests that drugs derived from APC may limit ischemia and reperfusion-induced heart damage (reperfusion injury for short) and thereby help preserve cardiac function in older hearts.

Advanced age is a major risk factor for ischemic heart disease, often caused by a buildup of plaques in coronary arteries that narrows the vessels and restricts the supply of oxygenated blood to the heart. This “hardening of the arteries” can eventually trigger a heart attack.