The Tasmanian Greens want humans tested for the same toxin which has been found in tasmanian devils.

Researchers with the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine have demonstrated the process by which the cancer-causing chemical dioxin attacks the cellular machinery, disrupts normal cellular function and ultimately promotes tumor progression.

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a new way to seek out specific proteins, including dangerous proteins such as anthrax toxin, and render them harmless using nothing but light.

As if being admitted to the hospital weren’t bad enough, patients, once admitted, are at higher risk of becoming infected with a “superbug” bacterium, Clostridium difficile (C. difficile). The toxins produced by C. difficile kill human intestinal cells by causing them to burst open, allowing the bacteria to use them as fuel.

A light-emitting strain of bacteria and a nematode worm, which work together to prey on soil-dwelling insects, use insecticidal toxins to kill their insect hosts. Scientists speaking today (Wednesday 5 September 2007) at the Society for General Microbiology’s 161st Meeting are now investigating the potential role of these toxins in bacteria pathogenic to humans. The meeting is at the University of Edinburgh, UK, and runs from 3-6 September 2007.

In work that could one day help prevent millions of dollars in economic losses for seaside communities, MIT chemists have demonstrated how tiny marine organisms likely produce the red tide toxin that periodically shuts down U.S. beaches and shellfish beds.

Human immune proteins crucial for fighting cancer, viruses and bacterial infections belong to an ancient and lethal toxin family previously only found in bacteria, Australian researchers have found.

Scientists are trying a plumber’s approach to rid the brain of the amyloid buildup that plagues Alzheimer’s patients: Simply drain the toxic protein away.

In the August 7, 2007, issue of PLoS One, researchers show how a poorly understood and previously unsuspected mechanism may be the key to understanding how life-style associated forms of oxidative stress, such as exposure to cigarette smoke, damage cells in the lungs.

After years of frustration with traditional methods for testing the toxicity of chemicals in the environment, scientists are working to adapt faster, simpler screening methods that do not require animals, now used by the pharmaceutical industry to identify potential drug candidates, according to an article [insert link here] scheduled for the August 6 issue of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS’s weekly newsmagazine.

Lead in goat blood might not be on the top of your shopping list, but for U.S. medical personnel who each year perform more than 2 million human blood measurements, Standard Reference Material (SRM) 955c from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) can’t be beat.

Research on the DNA of 15 mouse strains commonly used in biomedical studies is expected to help scientists determine the genes related to susceptibility to environmental disease.