Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the major cause of adult-onset dementia and is characterized in its pre-diagnostic stage by reduced cerebral cortical glucose metabolism and in later stages by reduced cortical oxygen uptake, implying reduced mitochondrial respiration. Using quantitative PCR we determined the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) gene copy numbers from multiple groups of 15 or 20 pyramidal neuro...

The analysis of genetic changes in primary cutaneous melanoma has been limited by the need for fixation for diagnostic purposes. However, comparative genomic hybridization is able to analyze such specimens. We have applied comparative genomic hybridization to 32 primary melanomas to discover and map genomic regions with aberrant DNA copy numbers. The analysis was performed on native, nonamplifi...

Retroviral vectors are commonly used in clinical gene therapy, but recent observations of insertional oncogene activation in preclinical and clinical settings have forced a discussion of their safety. Here we investigated the relationship between retroviral transduction efficiency in mass cultures and the actual number of integrated vector copies in single cells using K562 leukemia and primary ...

Mind image: Autism is characterized by a triad of impairments to social behaviour, communication and imagination. One school of thought claims that individuals with autism lack a ‘theory of mind’, implying that they don’t have a concept of themselves and other people as distinct, thinking personalities with their own beliefs, desires, etc. (Photo: N.H. Gross.) Autism, a neurodevelopmental disor...

Introduction: Glioblastoma primary brain tumor.Immunotherapy is a promising therapeutic adjuvant in fighting against this cancer.  Cancer/testis antigens (CTAs) are a group of tumor-associated antigens that are typically restricted to adult testis, but they are aberrantly expressed in several types of cancers, especially in advanced cancers with stem-like characteristics. These tumor-associate...