Engineered viruses can help fight antibiotic resistance
Viruses attack bacterial defenses
Anne Trafton, News Office
Timothey Lu Photo courtesy / Lemelson-MIT Program
A new approach to fighting bacterial infections, developed at MIT and Boston University, could help prevent bacteria from developing antibiotic resistance and help kill those that have already become resistant.
Chronic infection may add to developing-world deaths
MIT study points to hidden threat stalking many diarrhea patients
David Chandler, MIT News Office
Worldwide, nearly 2 million people per year die from diarrhea, the vast majority of them in poor countries in Africa and Asia. The disease accounts for 18 percent of all deaths among children -- and yet is almost always preventable with proper treatment. Now, new research from MIT indicates that underlying, low-level undiagnosed infection may greatly add to the severity of a significant number of these cases. This realization could lead to changes in health-care strategies to address the problem.
A possible treatment for Rett syndrome
MIT study suggests molecule can reverse some symptoms
Deborah Halber, Picower Institute
A molecule that promotes brain development could serve as a possible treatment for Rett syndrome, the most common form of autism in girls, according to researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.
RNA interference can suppress ovarian tumor growth
Study offers promise for new cancer treatments
Small RNA molecules can effectively keep ovarian tumors from growing and spreading in mice, according to a team of researchers from MIT, the Lankenau Institute for Medical Research and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals.
Multiple genes implicated in autism
Discovery could lead to drugs targeting gene interactions
Deborah Halber, Picower Institute
By pinpointing two genes that cause autism-like symptoms in mice, researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have shown for the first time that multiple, interacting genetic risk factors may influence the severity of autistic symptoms.
Signs point to sponges as earliest animal life 'Chemical fossils' provide evidence for first multicelled creatures
David Chandler, MIT News Office
Even Charles Darwin was puzzled by the apparently sudden appearance in the fossil record of a great variety of multicellular creatures -- a rapid blossoming known as the Cambrian explosion. Since then, the origin of animals was found to extend back earlier, through a period known as the Ediacarian. Now, evidence found by researchers at MIT, UC Riverside and other institutions shows that the first complex life forms may in fact have appeared much earlier still.
Blocking a specific protein complex prevents the formation of tumors in mice genetically predisposed to develop prostate cancer, researchers at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research have found. Interestingly, inhibiting this protein complex in non-cancer cells appears to have no impact, suggesting that the protein complex may represent a promising target for drug development.
