Studies to find better ways to preserve human eggs, ovarian tissue under way

bioman submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (www.eurekalert.org)

The goal is to make human eggs, ovarian tissue, blood vessels, even whole organs available when needed.

To get there, researchers are directly comparing slow-freezing techniques, used successfully for decades to preserve sperm and embryos, to a more rapid method of cryopreservation that transforms tissues into durable glass-like structures.

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Discovery of an HIV inhibitor in human blood points to new drug class

amanda submitted, created time 1 year 8 months (www.biologynews.net)

"A new study has pinpointed a natural ingredient of human blood that effectively blocks HIV-1, the virus predominantly responsible for human AIDS, from infecting immune cells and multiplying. The virus blocker might play a role in the progression of HIV to full-blown AIDS and—because it works in a different way than existing antiretroviral inhibitors—could lead to the development of another class of drugs in the fight against the pandemic disease, researchers reported in the April 20, 2007 issue of the journal Cell, a publication of Cell Press."

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