Nobel season has started for this year with the Medecine and Physiology Award. Congratulations to Craig Mello and Andrew Fire.

This year’s Nobel Laureates have discovered a fundamental mechanism for controlling the flow of genetic information. Our genome operates by sending instructions for the manufacture of proteins from DNA in the nucleus of the cell to the protein synthesizing machinery in the cytoplasm. These instructions are conveyed by messenger RNA (mRNA). In 1998, the American scientists Andrew Fire and Craig Mello published their discovery of a mechanism that can degrade mRNA from a specific gene. This mechanism, RNA interference, is activated when RNA molecules occur as double-stranded pairs in the cell. Double-stranded RNA activates biochemical machinery which degrades those mRNA molecules that carry a genetic code identical to that of the double-stranded RNA. When such mRNA molecules disappear, the corresponding gene is silenced and no protein of the encoded type is made.

RNA interference occurs in plants, animals, and humans. It is of great importance for the regulation of gene expression, participates in defense against viral infections, and keeps jumping genes under control. RNA interference is already being widely used in basic science as a method to study the function of genes and it may lead to novel therapies in the future.

You can read more about RNA interference at the Nobel Prize Website.

October 2nd, 2006 | General Science, Health | No comments

A novel approach to reading mammograms with the help of a computer could free up hundreds of medical man-hours, as well as speeding-up the breast screening process.

Scientists at The Universities of Manchester and Aberdeen and Cancer Research UK have found that the workload of radiologists could potentially be halved by using a new computer-aided system to help read breast x-rays and detect cancer.

With the computer-aided detection (CAD) system, only one expert is needed to look at each mammogram, rather than the usual two. Use of the system could free up the experts’ time, enabling more face-to-face consultations and all women to be screened as often as recommended.

The CAD programme searches mammograms for suspicious features or irregularities that could be caused by cancer. When the computer finds anything unusual it indicates it on a screen for the radiologist to look at.

Study results published today show that mammogram readings by a single expert plus the CAD system may be as good as those read by two expert radiologists, and in some cases the new combination could be even more successful.

(more…)

September 25th, 2006 | Health | 1 comment