Neonatal hypoxic-ischaemic (HI) brain injury resulting in encephalopathy is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality with no effective treatment. Here we show that caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE), an active component of propolis, administered either before or after an HI insult, significantly prevents HI-induced neonatal rat brain damage in the cortex, hippocampus and thalamus. In additio...

1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa, 2 Centre for High Performance Computing, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Cape Town, South Africa, 3 Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, Wallenberg Research Centre at Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa, 4 Center for Computational Imaging and Simulation Technologies in...

The ability to control fire was a crucial turning point in human evolution, but the question when hominins first developed this ability still remains. Here we show that micromorphological and Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy (mFTIR) analyses of intact sediments at the site of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa, provide unambiguous evidence--in the form of burned b...

It seems that it’s not just elephants that have long memories. Research by Anthony Gendall and co-workers [Cell (2001) 107, 525–535] shows that plants have a remarkable capacity to ‘remember’ too. Studying the process of vernalization (the acceleration of flowering by exposure to a cold period) in Arabidopsis, the team has identified the ‘memory’ gene, VRN2 (vernalization2). Although VRN2 is no...

*Deenan Pillay, Joshua Herbeck, Myron S Cohen, Tulio de Oliveira, Christophe Fraser, Oliver Ratmann, Andrew Leigh Brown, Paul Kellam, on behalf of the PANGEA-HIV Consortium Wellcome Trust-Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies, University of Kwazulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa (DP, TdO); Division of Infection and Immunity, University College London, London, UK (DP, TdO); Department of ...

Communities in South Africa, especially those in Limpopo and Northern Cape, have been decimated by the mining operations of Cape Plc. South African victims of asbestos-related disease have only recently begun to be awarded (modest) compensation settlements through litigation, as a result of collective efforts on their behalf. The tortuous case of Cape, which knowingly exposed thousands of innoc...

CAPE Internet Talk was started as part of CAPE follow-up activities to continue ties with CAPE alumni and those who are interested in professional development in English teaching. It is hoped that this would increase our bond and aloha among former participants, and that the information in the TALK would help our alumni and friends/members review what they know and deepen their understanding of...

Caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE), a natural polyphenolic compound with many biological activities, has been shown to be protective against ischemia-reperfusion injury. We have synthesized six new catechol ring-fluorinated CAPE derivatives and evaluated their cytotoxic and cytoprotective effects against menadione-induced cytotoxicity in human umbilical vein endothelial cells. These results pr...

Propolis is a mixture produced by honeybee, which have hundreds of polyphenols. Caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE) [Figure 1], an active component of honeybee propolis has been determined to have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and anticancer activities [1,2]. It has been used to prevent oxidative stress-based deterioration in cells/tissues/organs in both cell culture and experiment...