Feature Channels: Cell Biology

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For the first time, researchers have been able to grow, in a lab, both normal and primary cancerous prostate cells from a patient, and then implant a million of the cancer cells into a mouse to track how the tumor progresses. The achievement, say researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center who led the research, represents a critical advance in the effort to understand the origin and drivers of this puzzling cancer — the most common in men.

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Biology isn't just for biologists anymore. That's nowhere more apparent than in the newly furnished lab in room 097 of the Shriram Center basement, where flasks of bacterial and animal cells, snug in their incubators, are churning out proteins destined for jobs they may not have done in nature.

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Protecting the body against oxidative stress

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Johns Hopkins scientists report success in using a cocktail of cell-signaling chemicals to further wind back the biological clock of human embryonic stem cells (ESCs), giving the cells the same flexibility researchers have prized in mice ESCs.

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A biologist at The University of Texas at Dallas and his colleagues have discovered that two enzymes previously linked independently with keeping cancer cells alive actually work in tandem to spur tumor growth.

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A team of researchers at the Krembil Research Institute has published a paper that is expected to change the way scientists think about vision recovery after retinal cell transplantation.

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Researchers have discovered a possible explanation for a genetic error that causes over a dozen neuromuscular and neurodegenerative disorders.

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Scientists from the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University Health Network, have developed the first functional pacemaker cells from human stem cells, paving the way for alternate, biological pacemaker therapy.

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A team of scientists at the Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern (CRI) discovered a new bone-forming growth factor, Osteolectin (Clec11a), which reverses osteoporosis in mice and has implications for regenerative medicine.

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Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have discovered that lack of two types of enzymes can lead to liver disease and cancer in mice. In human liver tumors, they found that deficiencies in these two enzymes, Shp2 and Pten, are associated with poor prognosis. The study, published December 13 by Cell Reports, provides a new understanding of liver cancer development, new therapeutic approach and new mouse model for studying the disease.

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Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the U.S., making early, reliable diagnosis and treatment a priority. Miniaturized lab-on-chip approaches are prime candidates for developing viable diagnostic tests and instruments because they are small, need only limited test volumes, and can be cost-effective. Researchers have developed just such an approach capable of processing biomolecular samples from blood. They describe their work in this week’s Biomicrofluidics.

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A new study is the first to show that the Parkin gene is turned on when cells are exposed to environmental insults that cause free radical formation and cataract formation. Researchers have discovered that through the removal of mitochondria that are damaged by these environmental insults, Parkin prevents free radical formation in lens cells and increases the ability of the cells to survive exposure to conditions that are associated with aging and the development of many degenerative diseases.

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Columbia University researchers have discovered an enzyme deficiency in the brain that is linked to Prader-Willi syndrome, a genetic condition that causes extreme hunger and severe obesity beginning in childhood.

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Northwestern University synthetic biologists have developed a technology for engineering customized immune cells to build programmable therapeutics.

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The chronic lung inflammation that is a hallmark of cystic fibrosis, has, for the first time, been linked to a new class of bacterial enzymes that hijack the patient’s immune response and prevent the body from calling off runaway inflammation, according to a laboratory investigation led by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

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A pair of Vanderbilt chemists have developed a faster, cheaper method for synthesizing ring molecules called cyclic depsipeptides found in antibiotics, anti-retrovirals and pesticides.

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UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found that intermittent fasting inhibits the development and progression of the most common type of childhood leukemia.

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ROCHESTER, Minn. — Researchers at Mayo Clinic have identified an enzyme called UCHL3 that regulates the BRCA2 pathway, which is important for DNA repair. Results of this research are published online in Genes & Development.

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A major challenge in truly targeted cancer therapy is cancer’s suppression of the immune system. Northwestern University synthetic biologists now have developed a general method for “rewiring” immune cells to flip this action around. When cancer is present, molecules secreted at tumor sites render many immune cells inactive. The Northwestern researchers genetically engineered human immune cells to sense the tumor-derived molecules in the immediate environment and to respond by becoming more active, not less.

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A study embargoed until Monday, 12/12 shows that a protein biomarker for chronic kidney disease originates in the bone marrow. This discovery of where the suPAR protein originates is an important step towards earlier detection –and possible prevention – of a disease suffered by one in 10 adults, kills 48,000 people and costs Medicare $49 billion each year.

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Members of the TET family of proteins help protect against cancer by regulating the chemical state of DNA —and thus turning growth-promoting genes on or off. The latest findings reported by researchers at La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology illustrate just how important TET proteins are in controlling cell proliferation and cell fate.

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Even short-term blockages in hearing can lead to remarkable changes in the auditory system, altering the behavior and structure of nerve cells that relay information from the ear to the brain, according to a new University at Buffalo study.

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A genetic discovery by a team led by Dianna Milewicz, M.D., Ph.D., of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) could help explain a cause of a mysterious artery-damaging disease that may affect up to an estimated 5 million Americans and often strikes without warning.

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New research led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) reveals that a human enzyme has changed little from its days as a bacterial enzyme.

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Truncated p53 proteins, presumed unimportant, now point to new drug targets for some of 'the hardest cancers'

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Most cancer treatments come in the form of chemotherapy given intravenously. This is unique because it uses a combination of two oral medications.

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Blood-forming stem cells are able to count and store memories of the number of times that they divide, findings which could have major implications for disease research, scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have found.

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A team of scientists has uncovered details of the cellular mechanisms that control the direct programming of stem cells into motor neurons.

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Results of the largest Canadian clinical trial to date comparing standard treatment for locally advanced squamous cell head and neck cancer with an experimental treatment, did not show the new treatment is superior.

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Researchers cracked the complete genetic code of individual cells in healthy and diseased human lung tissues to find potential new molecular targets for diagnosing and treating the lethal lung disease Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF). Scientists from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, in collaboration with investigators at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, publish their findings Dec. 8 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation Insights (JCI Insight).

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Technion researchers have discovered a biological pathway that plays an important role in tumor development. The findings could lead to cancer-fighting drugs that work by shortening the half-life of select cancer-promoting proteins known as oncoproteins.

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Researchers at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at University of California San Diego have now determined the 3D structure of CCR2 simultaneously bound to two inhibitors. Understanding how these molecules fit together may better enable pharmaceutical companies to develop anti-inflammatory drugs that bind and inhibit CCR2 in a similar manner. The study is published December 7 by Nature.

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Scientists have called superoxide out as the main culprit behind coral bleaching: The idea is that as this toxin build up inside coral cells, the corals fight back by ejecting the tiny energy- and color-producing algae living inside them. In doing so, they lose their vibrancy, turn a sickly white, and are left weak, damaged, and vulnerable to disease.

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Leukemia researchers at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre have developed a 17-gene signature derived from leukemia stem cells that can predict at diagnosis if patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) will respond to standard treatment.

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The fate of stem cells is determined by series of choices that sequentially narrow their available options until stem cells’ offspring have found their station and purpose in the body. Their decisions are guided in part by TET proteins rewriting the epigenome, the regulatory layer of chemical flags that adorn the genome and influence gene activity, report researchers at La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology and UC San Diego.

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Researchers from the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and the Cedars-Sinai Department of Medicine are expanding their ongoing evaluation of a novel cell-based therapeutic candidate into the area of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). This work will be supported by a recently-awarded $7.3 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

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The blood-brain barrier is a network of specialized cells that surrounds the arteries and veins within the brain. It forms a unique gateway that both provides brain cells with the nutrients they require and protects them from potentially harmful compounds. An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education (VIIBRE) headed by Gordon A.

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Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found a new biomarker for glioma, a common type of brain cancer, that can help doctors determine how aggressive a cancer is and that could eventually help determine the best course of treatment.

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The patent relates to the use of Streck’s proprietary Cell-Free DNA BCT CE product for the collection of samples to analyze fetal nucleic acid for non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT).

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Researchers found that the browning program in white fat cells is normally suppressed by a protein called FLCN. It performs this function in cooperation with a major cellular signaling hub, a protein complex known as mTOR. Harnessing this knowledge may one day provide the key to better treatments for obesity.

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Demonstration that bacteria can drive mating in eukaryotes raises possibility that environmental bacteria or bacterial symbionts may influence mating in animals

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The combination of two new drugs that harness the body’s immune system is safe and effective, destroying most cancer cells in 64 percent of patients with recurrent Hodgkin lymphoma, according to the results of an early-phase study.

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Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center announced promising results from an early trial in which patients with high-risk acute myeloid leukemia received genetically engineered immune cells. Of the 12 AML patients who received this experimental T-cell therapy after a transplant put their disease in remission, all are still in remission after a median follow-up of more than two years.

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Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a novel strategy to reprogram cells from one type to another in a more efficient and less biased manner than previous methods.

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UCLA scientists provides further evidence that the brains of people with autism, despite different causes, tend to have the same molecular “signature.”

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In a recent study, a Yale Cancer Center team confirmed expectations of higher healthcare utilization and costs with relapsed Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL).

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A team of researchers, co-led by a University of California, Riverside professor, has found a long-sought-after mechanism in human cells that creates immunity to influenza A virus, which causes annual seasonal epidemics and occasional pandemics.

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TAMPA, Fla. – Immune cellular therapy is a promising new area of cancer treatment. Anti-cancer therapeutics, such as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) modified T cells, can be engineered to target tumor-associated antigens to attack and kill cancer cells. This allows for an improved precision medicine approach to treating cancer.

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The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) is collaborating with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Celgene Corp. to compile the largest set of high-quality

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Riding a wave of powerful new imaging technologies, three ASCB member labs will take you inside the world of living cells with the release of three short 2016 Celldance videos at the ASCB Annual Meeting in San Francisco