(University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center) Researchers have discovered an enzyme crucial to a type of DNA repair that also causes resistance to a class of cancer drugs most commonly used against ovarian cancer.

(Howard Hughes Medical Institute) A type of prostate cell that has been largely ignored by cancer researchers can trigger malignant prostate cancer. The studies provide researchers with a new tool for exploring the genetic changes that lead to prostate cancer. The advance may help in developing new treatments for the disease, which causes some 32,000 deaths in the United States annually.

(Wiley-Blackwell) A recent study from Australian researchers determined that transforaminal injection of steroids was a viable alternative to surgery for lumbar radicular pain due to disc herniation. Full details of the study appear in the August issue of Pain Medicine, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Academy of Pain Medicine, the Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists, and the International Spine Intervention Society.

(Rice University) Rice University researchers have created a theoretical method to calculate the time it takes long-chain polymers to pass through nano-sized pores in membranes. The researchers studied how membrane pore geometry affects the translocation of long polymers. They say the new method, which appears this month in the Journal of Chemical Physics, works for pores of any geometry, whether they're straight, conical or made of joined cylinders of different sizes.

(University at Buffalo) Resveratrol, a popular plant extract shown to prolong life in yeast and lower animals due to its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, appears also to suppress inflammation in humans, based on results from the first prospective human trial of the extract conducted by University at Buffalo endocrinologists.