Scientists know that inside each cell, a little engine called RNA polymerase II does one essential job: It copies instructions from genes in the nucleus that get carried to production units in the rest of the cell to support our daily needs.

Now researchers at the University of Michigan Medical School have shown that RNA polymerase II also constantly scans the cell’s DNA for damage. When certain types of damage in DNA halt the action of RNA polymerase II, a stress signal is generated that alerts a key tumor-suppressor protein called p53.

The activities of p53, a master protein that responds to DNA damage by marshaling hundreds of genes to repair or eliminate damaged cells, have been the subject of thousands of studies.

New insights into the role of estrogen receptor in mammary gland development may help scientists better understand the molecular origin of breast cancer, according to new research from the University of Cincinnati.

About a decade ago, U.S. scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) developed a standard estrogen receptor (ER) gene knock-out mouse model to study the estrogen receptor’s role in human diseases.

“Unfortunately, because these mice lacked mammary glands as a consequence of genetic manipulation, using this model to study the relationship between the estrogen receptor and breast cancer proved ineffective,” explains Sohaib Khan, PhD, professor of cell and cancer biology.

A study by researchers at the University of Southampton has shown evidence of increased levels of hyperactivity in young children consuming mixtures of some artificial food colors and the preservative sodium benzoate.

The possibility of food colors and preservatives affecting children's behavior has long been an unresolved question for parents. This significant new research by a team from the University of Southampton's Schools of Psychology and Medicine provides a clear demonstration that changes in behavior can be detected in three-year-old and eight-year-old children.

A common hospital superbug called Clostridium has a protective coat of armor that can self assemble when put into a test tube on its own, which may have important commercial uses in nanotechnology, according to scientists.

Like many other micro-organisms, Clostridium difficile produces a lattice coat made of proteins to surround its cell wall and protect it like a suit of armour. The complete protein coat is then attached to the underlying cell wall with chemical bonds.

“We have discovered that these protein coats have a remarkable ability to self-assemble when they are taken off the bacteria and put into a test tube.

How we come to express the genes of one parent over the other is now better understood through studying the platypus and marsupial wallaby – and it doesn’t seem to have originated in association with sex chromosomes.

New research published in BMC Evolutionary Biology has shed light on the evolution of genomic imprinting, in which specific genes on chromosomes that have been inherited from one parent are expressed in an organism, while the same genes on the chromosome inherited from the other parent are repressed.

Imprinting arises from some kind of ‘epigenetic memory’ – modifications to the DNA from one parent, such as the way the chromosomal material is packaged, that do not allow particular genes to be expressed. The reasons why imprinting evolved are not understood.

Bacteria that thrive in oxygen starved environments have been used successfully to target cancer tumors, delivering gene therapy based anti-cancer treatments, according to scientists.

For about half of cancer sufferers traditional treatments such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy are ineffective, so alternative techniques are being developed to target their tumors.

“To target a tumour with gene therapy you need three things. You need to be able to distinguish the tumour from its surrounding healthy tissue. You need to identify a therapeutic gene which will treat the problem. And you need some way of delivering the gene to the tumour”, says Dr Jan Theys of Maastricht University, the Netherlands.