Australian scientists working with professors from King's College in London have discovered a new therapeutic target for Lou Gehrig's disease, also known an amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Researchers found a mutation in a gene responsible for the crippling and gradual paralysis suffered by ALS patients.

The results, published in the Feb. 28 online issue of Science, provide "a link between genetics and [the] pathology that proves that the pathology is important for the disease," said Virginia Lee, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Researchers from two U.S. universities have developed a new vaccination technique for preventing prostate cancer and a new test to detect the disease more accurately.

Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) developed a vaccine that stimulates immune response against prostate stem cell antigen (PSCA), a protein whose over-expression indicates a developing prostate cancer. The vaccine proved successful in arresting the growth of a prostate cancer in mice that were genetically modified to develop the disease

Researchers at the Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts have identified 273 more proteins that the human immune-deficiency virus (HIV) attacks. The new HIV-prone proteins offers hope for a cure to AIDS by allowing researchers to test drugs that prevent the proteins from being infected with the deadly virus.

According to the study of the researchers published in Science Express on Thursday, the identification of the new proteins entailed the tedious scanning of 21,000 human genes. The researchers used short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) to disrupt each gene's ability to produce a certain protein and then exposed it to HIV to see if the virus replicates in cells. HIV propagation indicates that a protein hosts the virus

A recent study has identified a tiny molecule in the microRNA of the mice, which aids their immune system thus suggesting that the corresponding human gene will have a similar vital role.

The study, which was published Friday in journal Science, reports that the laboratory mice in which the so-called microRNA molecule was neutralized or "knocked out" showed lower resistance to infection by bacteria such as salmonella

At least 150 inmates and seven guards have reportedly fallen ill at the Clark County jail in Las Vegas, Nevada after a norovirus outbreak as health authorities are currently working upon decontamination of the building. The stomach-related illness was reported Saturday, with most inmates complaining about distress such as diarrhea, vomiting and cramps.

AP reports that nearly all the infected inmates worked in the kitchen and authorities are speculating that the virus might have been spread throughout the 3,100-bed detention through the use of contaminated food or trays