Scientists have bred an unusually anxious, compulsively overgrooming mouse by knocking out a single gene called Slitrk5. These genetically altered mice, which behave much like people with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), could help researchers better understand and treat the debilitating disorder. The work was published online yesterday in Nature Medicine.
Cancer is a real bummer. So maybe terminally ill patients need a little pick me up. That’s the hypothesis of a group of psychiatrists who are testing whether psychedelic drugs can help people better cope with their diagnoses.
Researchers at New York University have treated three people with psilocybin, the active compound found in magic mushrooms. Combined with their regular psychotherapy, all three have had less anxiety and greater acceptance of the death, the Associate Press reports. The project is scheduled to include another 29 enrollees.
Similar studies examining psilocybin benefits for cancer anxiety are also ongoing at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the University of California—Los Angeles.
In the video below, Nicky Edlich, a retired French teacher who suffers from advanced ovarian cancer, describes how her first-ever trip helped her view her anxiety in a new light.
Nobel prize-winning biologist Paul Nurse, 61, has been tapped to lead the elite Royal Society of London, the British society announced today.
Nurse, former chief of Cancer Research UK and now president of Rockefeller University in New York, won the 2001 Nobel in medicine and physiology for his role in identifying the enzyme cyclin-dependent kinase as the key regulator of cell division. He is stepping down from the helm of Rockefeller at the end of the year, although he will maintain a yeast genetics and cell biology lab there, ScienceInsider reports.
Although the society’s fellows must still approve the nomination, Nurse is expected to succeed astrophysicist Martin Rees as the 60th president of the 350-year-old society in December. Other past presidents include physicist Isaac Newton, botanist Joseph Hooker, ‘Darwin’s bulldog’ T.H. Huxley and, more recently, biophysicist Aaron Klug and theoretical ecologist Robert May.
Nurse, a British national whose long list of accolades include the 1998 Lasker prize and knighthood in 1999, first moved across the pond to New York in 2003. Upon applying for his green card to live in the US, the famed biologist learned some startling facts about his own genetics. You can hear Nurse’s account, as told last June at the World Science Festival in New York, at the Moth podcast, a story-telling roundtable series.
Image via Wikipedia
Posted on behalf of Christian Torres
At the end of the week, it may be hard to remember what you’ve read recently. That’s why we’ve compiled a few reminders from our news coverage, and giving a few updates.
In case you haven’t caught it yet, in the April episode of the Nature Medicine podcast we examine the problem of fake drugs, a predictive test for multiple sclerosis and the risks of blood transfusions.
Celebrities and politicians have been putting their twittering thumbs to work this week to raise funds for bednets (to protect people in malaria-endemic regions). Bill Gates, one of those tweeting on the subject, also went on record saying it the lack of attention to malaria vaccine research a decade ago was “criminal”.
Amidst all the buzz over malaria, a study out in the Journal of Infectious Diseases on Monday suggests that there’s still much that we don’t understand about the parasites that cause it. In the paper, Colin Sutherland of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and his colleagues offer evidence that Plasmodium ovale — one of the five species of the malaria Plasmodium parasite — might actually be two species. The scientists came to this conclusion after conducting genetic analyses of 55 isolates from 15 countries, 12 in Africa and three in the Asia-Pacific region.
Cross posted from Nature’s The Great Beyond blog.
As more and more US states allow medical use of marijuana, science needs to catch up, says a new paper in a prestigious medical journal.
Multiple states have already passed laws that endorse – if not outright legalize – medical usage of marijuana.
On Tuesday, advocates of marijuana legalization marked ‘four-twenty’, as the celebration of cannabis smoking held on 20 April is known. And while a survey conducted by AP found that 55% of Americans don’t want marijuana legalized – versus 33% who do – 60% support medical use of the plant.
Cannabis is clearly a burning issue right now.
Today’s dose is heavy on ethics, but we do leave room to indulge in a little red wine.
Today’s dose is only half fat — and half news on the fight against infectious disease.
Cross posted from Nature’s The Great Beyond blog.
Drug giant Pfizer has been issued with an official warning letter by US regulators after “significant violations” resulted in overdoses being administered to several children enrolled in one of its clinical trials.
In a letter dated 9 April and released yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration says an investigation has found the company failed to properly oversee the trial. “As a result of inadequate monitoring, widespread overdosing of study subjects at multiple study sites was neither detected nor corrected in a timely manner,” the letter says.