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 IMMUNOLOGY: Live T Cell Action in Lymph Nodes: Dating, Mating, Procreating
In the fight against infections, lymph nodes are a kind of boot camp for T cells. It is there that the immune cells learn about invaders and gear up for battle. New scientific videos from the lab of Ulrich von Andrian, appearing in the Jan. 8 Nature, show three stages of T-cell training, nicknamed "dating, mating, and procreating."
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 OPHTHALMOLOGY: Mechanism Found for Rare Vision Defect
A vision problem that causes temporary blindness, makes it difficult to see moving objects, and has stumped many ophthalmologists, is caused by simple point mutations, say Thaddeus Dryja (on left), Koji Nishiguchi, and colleagues in the Jan. 1 Nature. The defective genes code for proteins that help deactivate visual signaling cascades. Due to the mutations, rods and cones may take much longer than normal to reset after being stimulated by a photon. In certain lighting conditions, this delay can leave patients momentarily blind. Fortunately, the condition is estimated to affect only one in a million people.
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HEALTH POLICY: For-profit Health Plans Appear Not to Restrict High-cost Care
Contrary to the popular perception that for-profit health plans boost their bottom line by limiting expensive procedures, HSPH researchers have found that Medicare patients in for-profit managed care received as many or more high-cost surgical procedures as enrollees in not-for-profit plans. Eric Schneider and colleagues looked at the use of treatments like carotid artery clearing, cardiac catheterization, and coronary artery bypass among almost 4 million Medicare patients, and report their results in the Jan. 8 New England Journal of Medicine. The study will calm fears that for-profit ownership of health plans leads to unreasonable restrictions on care, but it also raises questions about the ability of for-profit managed care to control health care spending.
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NEUROLOGY: Failure to Repair Membrane May Lead to Muscular Dystrophy
Researchers have discovered a new route by which some forms of muscular dystrophy cause the progressive whittling away of muscle. Niall Lennon, Robert Brown, and colleagues show that a genetic mutation in people with either of two forms of muscular dystrophy, limb girdle muscular dystrophy type 2B or Miyoshi myopathy, may impede the muscle cell's efforts to fix the everyday wear and tear that even healthy membranes experience. "This would over time lead to more muscle cells dying," said Lennon. The discovery, published in the Dec. 12 Journal of Biological Chemistry, raises the possibility that some forms of muscular dystrophy might be averted by boosting the muscle cells ability to repair their membranes.
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Copyright 2004 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
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