Word: receptors
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...functions in diabetes patients. And last month, Kahn was awarded the first annual Manpei Suzuki International Prize for Diabetes Research for the extensive work he has done “from the discovery of alterations in insulin binding in the disease state to the generation of tissue-specific insulin receptor knockout mice,” according to the foundation’s Web site...
...into slumber. Guests of the Concept Room can also receive an assortment of calming oils, a sound machine and a special jet lag-busting herbal calming tea and snacks. To encourage alertness the next morning, there's a blue light in the shower, which sends a signal through a receptor in your eye to signal wakefulness; if that doesn't do the trick, there's also a eucalyptus shower fizzer. Still groggy? The light box over the desk helps re-energize you in 20 minutes and the special morning breakfast menu offers invigorating tea and high protein smoothies. To reserve...
This is a finding five years in the making. Virologist Robin Weiss of University College London began to study the relevant receptor in 2003, after seeing earlier research that showed how variation in another gene similarly blocked the receptor that allows HIV to enter white blood cells; far fewer people carry that variant. In the lab, Weiss found that the African-specific receptor, called DARC, or duffy antigen receptor for chemokines, also interacted with HIV: the receptor binds to a wide array of proteins that suppress the virus's replication. Intrigued, but unable to explain why the lack...
Published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, the findings center around one gene variation that blocks a receptor from being expressed on the surface of red blood cells. Scientists had previously studied this genetic variant - found almost exclusively in Africans and their descendants - because it also conferred protection against an early form of malaria. (The malaria parasite needed the receptor to infect blood cells; without the receptor, the parasite starved and died.) More than 90% of sub-Saharan Africans lack the red-blood-cell receptor, along with two-thirds of African-Americans. But the variant that once saved its carriers...
...such drugs are already being tested. Hagerman and a team at Chicago's Rush University Medical Center have begun trials with a drug called fenobam, originally designed as an antianxiety medication. MIT's Bear expects to begin trials with two other compounds later this year. The drugs target a receptor on brain cells that the fragile X protein normally helps regulate; the receptor, in turn, regulates proteins involved in learning and memory. "We're looking at a medication to reverse the retardation," says the optimistic Hagerman, "and I think we can achieve...