A newly-identified virus may be responsible for the deaths of three Victorians who received organs from the same donor in December.

Victoria's Acting Chief Health Officer Dr John Carnie said there was no evidence the virus represented a public health risk and its presence in these Victorian recipients is thought to be a world-first occurrence.

A naturally occurring compound found in many fruits and vegetables as well as red wine, selectively kills leukemia cells in culture while showing no discernible toxicity against healthy cells, according to a study by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. These findings, which were published online March 20 in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and will be in press on May 4, offer hope for a more selective, less toxic therapy for leukemia.

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is a hormonal system that defends against stress, starvation and illnesses. New findings of alterations in adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol secretion in alcoholic patients, which reflect changes in the HPA axis, prompt recommendations that alcoholics avoid excessive stress – both physical and psychological – during early abstinence.

A wide variety of public policies affect alcohol purchases, consumption, and traffic fatalities, The two alcohol-control policies that have been most-clearly demonstrated to reduce youth consumption and traffic deaths are raising the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) and raising beer taxes. Researchers have evaluated the independent effectiveness of these and many other policies. A new study finds that the effectiveness of any particular policy depends on what other policies are also in place.

Researchers and clinicians already know that alcohol abuse and/or dependence can lead to severe and potentially irreversible brain damage. It is also known that women, when compared to men, seem to become more "damaged" by chronic alcohol abuse within a shorter period of drinking and with less overall consumption. A new study shows that female alcoholics may also sustain greater cognitive damage than male alcoholics.

For nearly a century, anthropologists have been debating the relationship of Neanderthals to modern humans. Central to the debate is whether Neanderthals contributed directly or indirectly to the ancestry of the early modern humans that succeeded them.

As this discussion has intensified in the past decades, it has become the central research focus of Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D., professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. Trinkaus has examined the earliest modern humans in Europe, including specimens in Romania, Czech Republic and France. Those specimens, in Trinkaus' opinion, have shown obvious Neanderthal ancestry.

Oregon Health & Science University neuroscientists are eyeing a protein as a potential therapeutic target for multiple sclerosis because de-activating it protects nerve fibers from damage.

OHSU researchers, working with colleagues at the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of Padova in Italy, have shown that genetically inactivating a protein called cyclophilin D can protect nerve fibers in a mouse model of multiple sclerosis. Cyclophin D is a key regulator of molecular processes in the nerve cell's powerhouse, the mitochondrion, and can participate in nerve fiber death. Inactivating cyclophilin D strengthens the mitochondrion, helping to protect nerve fibers from injury.

A relative of the anti-aging gene Klotho helps activate a hormone that can lower blood glucose levels in fat cells of mice, making it a novel target for developing drugs to treat human obesity and diabetes, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found.

In a study available online and in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers show that a type of Klotho protein binds to receptors for a metabolic hormone in fat cells, forming a "co-receptor" that enables the hormone to stimulate the processing of glucose, the body’s main source of fuel. The Klotho gene has previously been found to play a role in prolonging the life of mice partly by controlling insulin.

Research led by Dartmouth scientists found that animals fed nutritious, high-quality food end up with much lower concentrations of toxic methylmercury in their tissues. The result suggests ways in which methylmercury—a neurotoxin that can accumulate to hazardous levels—can be slowed in its passage up the food chain to fish.

"This research provides evidence that by eating high-quality food, organisms may reduce their bodily concentration of a contaminant," said lead author Roxanne Karimi, a graduate student in the Dartmouth Department of Biological Sciences. "These findings allow us to predict the conditions under which freshwater fish are likely to carry relatively high mercury levels."

When motor neurons damaged by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s disease, inappropriately send the wrong signal, immune cells react by killing the messenger. Their surprising finding provides new direction for therapies to treat ALS.

The study was conducted in the laboratory of Don Cleveland, Ph.D., UCSD Professor of Medicine, Neurosciences and Cellular and Molecular Medicine and member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and will be published online April 27 in advance of publication in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.