] "Welcome to the online information site for the new Cool
] Springs Life Sciences Center in Franklin, Tennessee, a
] 10-acre research and technology campus dedicated to
] advancing the life sciences"

Cool Springs Life Sciences Center

] "Kevin E. Healy, a professor with joint appointments in
] Berkeley's departments of Materials Science and
] Engineering (MSE) and Bioengineering (BioE), and MSE
] graduate student Timothy V. Kirk are developing an
] injectable gel rife with living cells and bioactive
] molecules that could rebuild portions of a heart damaged
] by disease. "

This is a really neat idea.

Lab Notes: Research from the Berkeley College of Engineering

] "A full 99 percent of a mouse's genes have counterparts
] in humans, including genes that cause mice to have tails.
] In fact, researchers said they have identified only 300
] genes that are unique to either creature"

whoa...cool

Wired News: Man or Mouse Genome?

] "A woman's risk of breast cancer increases by seven per
] cent for each alcoholic drink consumed on a daily basis.
] But smoking does not increase the risk of developing the
] disease."

This is interesting....they say it is a "definitive" study.....but in my eyes, no study is "definitive"....but anyway, I do have to say that unlike alot of research out there, these researchers used *alot* of women in their study. But, alas, everything causes cancer. And once you have grown cancer in a tissue culture flask, you get a first hand look at how scary cancer really can be.

New Scientist - One drink per day boosts breast cancer risk

] "The latest cancer vaccine has an unexpected target - it
] triggers an immune system attack on growing blood vessels
] rather than tumours. This cuts off the blood supply
] cancers need to grow."

New Scientist - Cancer vaccine shuts off blood supply

"Writing in the advanced online edition of Nature magazine, Stanford University scientists Christopher D. Snow and Vijay S. Pande describe how they, with the help of 30,000 personal computers, successfully simulated part of the complex folding process that a typical protein molecule undergoes to achieve its unique, three-dimensional shape."

ScienceDaily Magazine -- Folding@home Scientists Report First Distributed Computing Success

"Genetically-modified animals can be created simply by washing sperm, swishing it in a centrifuge with an additional gene, and using the altered sperm for artificial insemination, say Italian researchers.
Marialuisa Lavitrano's team at the University of Milan-Bicocca in Milan have demonstrated how well the simple method works by creating pigs that could one day provide rejection-free organs for transplantation into people. The technique worked 25 times more efficiently than the standard way of engineering animals."

This is cool, if it works as well as this scientist says it does. I personally find it hard to believe that the DNA always ends up in a place in the genome where it is able to function. Genetic engineering of animals just *can't* be this simple. I would have to see it to believe it.

New Scientist - 'DIY gene modification' of animals revealed

"A team led by John Yu at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles took neural stem cells from mice fetuses and genetically engineered them to produce interleukin 12. This is an immune stimulating chemical known to kill gliomas. The team then injected the modified stem cells into implanted gliomas in the brains of mice. "

This is so neat.

New Scientist - 'Seek and destroy' stem cells kill brain tumours

But a few scientists theorize that a better approach is to induce the same regeneration in people that occurs in salamanders and some other animals. Natural regeneration, which might be accomplished with drugs or genes, would be easier than transplanting, they say. And the tissue would be the patient's own, doing away with the problem of rejection. Even if salamanders' feats cannot be reproduced in humans, those scientists say, studying regenerating animals will at least provide clues for stem cell scientists."

Sooooo cool! - Nano

Missing Limb? Salamander May Have Answer

"-- Scientists for the first time have engineered a harmless virus to correct, rather than replace, the genetic defect causing the most common single gene disorder. The new research presents a novel approach to gene therapy in treating the most common inherited anemias: the thalassemias. "

See, this is what I am talking about. Using genetically engineered viruses to re-program your genome!

ScienceDaily Magazine -- Researchers Engineer Virus That Blocks Common Genetic Defect