Notebook

Contents Pivotal pump Leptin limbo Clue to obesity Biotech Web site Helping hand Mapping malaria UCSD - Salk Program in Molecular Medicine HEART FAILURE RESCUE: A cross section of a mouse genetically engineered to develop heart failure (left) shows enlarged heart chambers and thin walls that are typical of the condition. A cross section from the same strain of mouse, but with the phospholamban gene (PLB) also missing, appears normal. PIVOTAL PUMP A biochemical calcium pump and the gene that controls it are "pivotal" to the failure of a mechanical one, the heart, reports Kenneth R. Chien, University of California at San Diego molecular geneticist, and colleagues (S. Minimisawa et al., "Chronic phospholamban-sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium ATPase interaction is the critical calcium cycling defect in dilated cardiomyopathy," Cell, 99:531-41, Oct. 29, 1999). Chien and colleagues arrested heart failure in mice by using a gene knockout of phospholamban (PLB), the genetic brake ...