Teams led by scientists from the Scripps Research Institute and the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute reported last week that they have engineered and identified, respectively, parts of HIV that can strongly stimulate naïve B cells to produce the sorts of antibodies that can ultimately become broadly effective against HIV – a step toward the development of an HIV vaccine that has long eluded researchers.

By using a single-cell proteomics approach, researchers have discovered that the mammalian target of rapamycin, or mTOR protein, may be hardest to drug at oxygen levels that are often found in tumors.

Scientists have discovered that normal brain activity induces DNA damage, and that such damage is induced more strongly, and repaired more slowly, in the brains of mice with Alzheimer's disease. The findings suggest new possibilities for fighting neuronal damage in Alzheimer's disease, and such DNA breaks may also be a newly discovered mechanism of memory storage under normal circumstances.

By blocking a spectrum of fibroblast growth factor (FGF) signaling pathways, but specifically staying away from others, scientists at Five Prime Therapeutics Inc. have been able to inhibit both tumor and blood vessel growth in animal models of several different cancer types.

Though it is no match for fat-laden modern diets, the body does have ways of getting rid of cholesterol. This reverse cholesterol transport system removes cholesterol from tissues and transports it to the liver and, ultimately, out of the body.

Autoimmune disease, Richard Siegel of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases told his audience at a recent talk at the National Institutes of Health, is "one of the final frontiers in medicine."

Researchers have developed a new drug that fights the malaria parasite at multiple stages in its life cycle, and in both of its hosts – the human and the mosquito – raising hopes that if the compound makes it through clinical development, it could ultimately hound the parasite out of existence.

Inflammation can be thought of as two separate processes. Acute inflammation is a critical part of survival. But it comes at a price. Unresolved inflammation drives many chronic diseases, from heart disease to autoimmune disorders.

Scientists at Harvard University have gained new insights into how sirtuins – enzymes that appear to have broad anti-aging effects – are affected by their activators. The work contradicts earlier claims that the activation of sirtuins through resveratrol was an artifact of the way those effects were studied when they were first discovered.