For more than 80 years scientists have thought that cancer cells fuel their explosive growth by soaking up glucose from the blood, using its energy and atoms to crank out duplicate sets of cellular components. But is this really true? Work in a metabolomics laboratory at Washington University in St. Louis suggests not.
UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have determined the atomic structure of an enzyme that plays an essential role in cell division, the fundamental process that occurs countless times daily in many life forms on Earth.
Cerebral cavernous malformations (CCMs) are clusters of dilated, thin-walled blood vessels in the brain that can cause stroke and seizures, yet exactly how they form is somewhat of a mystery. Now, researchers have discovered the molecular mechanism that underlies this common cerebrovascular disease.
A University of Guelph professor has uncovered the “secret” to staying strong as we age – superb fitness. Geoff Power found elderly people who were elite athletes in their youth or later in life – and who still compete as masters athletes — have much healthier muscles at the cellular level compared to those of non-athletes.
Ever see something that isn't really there? Could your mind be playing tricks on you? The "tricks" might be your brain reacting to feedback between neurons in different parts of the visual system, according to a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience by Carnegie Mellon University Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences Sandra J. Kuhlman and colleagues.
Chromosomes are the basic materials used by the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC) to sequence the bread wheat genome, which has 21 pairs of chromosomes. How can they be separated?
The American Association of Anatomists (AAA) is honored to announce the 2016 Young Investigator Award winners. All awards will be presented during the Closing Awards Ceremony at AAA's 2016 annual meeting at Experimental Biology (EB) in San Diego, CA.
Bacteria are the most abundant form of life on Earth, and they are capable of living in diverse habitats ranging from the surface of rocks to the insides of our intestines. Over millennia, these adaptable little organisms have evolved a variety of specialized mechanisms to move themselves through their particular environments. In two recent Caltech studies, researchers used a state-of-the-art imaging technique to capture, for the first time, three-dimensional views of this tiny complicated machinery in bacteria.
The Children’s Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases (CCCBD) at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles is one of the first sites in the world to offer a promising new investigational therapy to treat pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).
After nearly 30 years of leadership in the battle against the chronic disease in Michigan, Dr. Wanda Whitten-Shurney will now play an expanded national role in shaping federal policy and guidelines aimed at lessening the impact of the genetically triggered blood disorder.
In the paper, SLU scientist Alessandro Vindigni, Ph.D., details several coping strategies cells use when they face replication stress: the cellular version of choosing yoga, meditation or a trip to the movies after a stressful event.
The new information about the Y chromosome will facilitate efforts to reduce female mosquitoes or create sterile males—strategies of interest to research teams across the world.
The closely related Hendra and Nipah viruses (referred to jointly as henipaviruses) are deadly cousins of the more common mumps, measles, and respiratory syncytial viruses, all members of the paramyxovirus family. Henipavirus outbreaks are on the rise, but little is known about them, partly because research has to be conducted under extreme level containment conditions.
Chemists have identified the complex chemical structure of the protein that stacks together to form fibrils in the brains of Parkinson's disease patients. Armed with this knowledge, researchers can identify specific targets for diagnosis and treatment.
Infections with bacterium Clostridium difficile have rapidly become a significant medical problem in hospitals and long-term care facilities. The bacteria cause diarrhea and life-threatening inflammation of the colon by producing toxins that kill the endothelial cells that form the lining of the gut. Although a natural inhibitor of these toxins, called InsP6, works in the test tube, it is not very efficient when administered orally. Traditional methods to optimize InsP6 have until now not been successful, but researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have discovered that changing one atom in InsP6 can increase its ability to neutralize the toxins by 26-fold.
UC Berkeley biologists have discovered the switch that triggers the power kick sperm use to penetrate and fertilize a human egg, uncovering a possible source of male infertility but also a potential target for contraceptives that work in both men and women.
It turns out that the rigid "line in the sand" over which the human sex chromosomes---the Y and X--- go to avoid crossing over is a bit blurrier than previously thought. Contrary to the current scientific consensus, Arizona State University assistant professor Melissa Wilson Sayres has led a research team that has shown that X and Y DNA swapping may occur much more often. And this promiscuous swapping, may in turn, aid in our understanding of human history and diversity, health and disease, as well as blur rigid chromosomal interpretations of sexual identity.
Neuroscientists document some of the first steps in the process by which a stem cell transforms into different cell types.
A research group at Cornell University has been studying cancer cells' ability to migrate through to tight spaces and self-repair to develop both treatment and diagnostic solutions for the millions of people who deal with cancer every day.
Viruses that infect bacteria are among the most abundant life forms on Earth. Indeed, our oceans, soils and potentially even our bodies would be overrun with bacteria were it not for bacteria-eating viruses, called bacteriophages, that keep the microbial balance of ecological niches in check.
This study has helped determine that UBE3A gene loss specifically from GABAergic neurons is what’s critical for seizures in Angelman patients. But UBE3A loss from other neuron types may drive other phenotypes associated with the condition.
All multicellular organisms that reproduce sexually rely on eggs to support early life. Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Ludwig Cancer Research used the tiny roundworm C. elegans as a model to better understand how eggs enable embryonic development, using only the materials already present in them. Their study uncovers the role small RNAs and helper proteins play in fine-tuning egg development.
A method to rotate single particles, cells or organisms using acoustic waves in a microfluidic device will allow researchers to take three dimensional images with only a cell phone. Acoustic waves can move and position biological specimens along the x, y and z axes, but for the first time researchers at Penn State have used them to gently and safely rotate samples, a crucial capability in single-cell analysis, drug discovery and organism studies.
Funded by Ultragenyx Pharmaceuticals, Saint Louis University’s Fran Sverdrup, Ph.D., will continue promising research to find a treatment for a form of muscular dystrophy.
A method using acoustic waves in a microfluidic device to rotate single particles, cells or organisms will allow researchers to take three dimensional images with only a cell phone.
The Hemophilia and Thrombosis Treatment Center at UC San Diego Health has joined a nationwide clinical trial testing a potential gene therapy that may one day provide a better and long-lasting treatment for people with hemophilia B.
New research from The Wistar Institute demonstrated that dozens of these targeted therapies suppressed the activity of T cells that could actually help fight tumors. While studying the FDA-approved targeted therapy trametinib, the researchers also found that pairing it with a signaling protein “superagonist” stimulated T cell activity while preserving the cancer-blocking effects of the cancer treatment.
Researchers at the University of Southampton have discovered specific markers on DNA that link the season of birth to risk of allergy in later life.
Protein chemists at Johns Hopkins report they are closer to explaining why certain blood cancers are able to crack a molecular security system and run rampant.
Even the simplest creatures have their wonders, as a new piece of science shows. In PNAS, scientists report new findings related to the remarkable adaptability of common baker's yeast in the face of food scarcity.
An engineering team at Washington University in St. Louis developed a cellular kill switch, a sensor that rewards hard working cells and eliminates their lazy counterparts. The high-tech engineering fix could help improve production of biofuels and pharmaceuticals.
A study has identified nerve cells and a region of the brain behind this innate fear response. With a new technique that uses specially-engineered viruses to uncover the nerve pathway involved, a research team led by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center biologist and Nobel Prize-winner Dr. Linda Buck has pinpointed a tiny area of the mouse brain responsible for this scent-induced reaction.
Unraveling the structure and function of the enzyme aurone synthase.
An overwhelming number of researchers still struggle within the black hole of the effectiveness and safety of stem cell therapy for neurological diseases. While the complexity of understanding how neurons grow, connect and function has long been studied, it remains a mystery, one that Forrest Goodfellow is helping to unravel.
A team of Stanford Bio-X scientists developed the first technique for viewing cells and tissues in 3 dimensions under the skin -- the work could improve diagnosis and treatment for some forms of cancer and blindness.
Harvard Medical School graduate student Thomas Graham explains the techniques he used to peer into how DNA double-strand breaks are repaired. Video: Stephanie Dutchen Dozens of times per day in each of the trillions of dividing cells in our bodies, the double strands that form our DNA may break and need to be fixed. Harvard Medical School scientists have now devised a way to watch how these essential repairs get made in real time and at previously unattainable resolution, allowing them to discover individual steps in the repair process and identify which proteins are involved in each.
Imagine telling a patient suffering from age-related (type-II) osteoporosis that a single injection of stem cells could restore their normal bone structure. This week, with a publication in STEM CELLS Translational Medicine, a group of researchers from the University of Toronto and The Ottawa Hospital suggest that this scenario may not be too far away.
A new study provides insight on the potential role played by RNA (ribonucleic acid) editing in cancer.
Tracy C. Grikscheit, MD, of The Saban Research Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles receives $7.1 million grant from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine Translational Research program to develop a cellular therapy for the treatment of nerve disorders of the digestive system.
A University of Saskatchewan team has discovered a way to prevent bacteria from developing resistance to antibiotics, potentially helping to blunt the edge of a looming threat to public health around the world.
Scientists have long sought an efficient method for targeting RNA— intermediary genetic material that carries the genetic code from the cell’s nucleus to protein-making machinery — in living cells. Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have now achieved this by applying the popular DNA-editing technique CRISPR-Cas9 to RNA. The study is published March 17 in Cell.
If you want to harness the full power of stem cells, all you might need is an eraser – in the form of a drug that can erase the tiny labels that tell cells where to start reading their DNA. In a surprising new finding, scientists have shown that mouse stem cells treated with the drug reverted to an ‘embryonic’ state.
UNC researchers uncovered a cellular mechanism by which kappa opioid receptors drive anxiety. These proteins inhibit the release of the neurotransmitter glutamate in a part of the brain that regulates emotion. KORs are targets for the treatment of addiction and anxiety disorders.
In one of the first studies to "read" the genetic activity inside individual brain cells, University of Wisconsin-Madison neuroscientist Xinyu Zhao has identified the genetic machinery that causes maturation in a young nerve cell.
Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have identified a second role for a class of RNA-binding proteins, revealing new insights about neurological diseases and conditions associated with this protein such as autism, epilepsy, and certain types of cancer.
National Institutes of Health-funded scientists have developed a 3D micro-scaffold technology that promotes reprogramming of stem cells into neurons, and supports growth of neuronal connections capable of transmitting electrical signals. The injection of these networks of functioning human neural cells – compared to injecting individual cells -- dramatically improved their survival following transplantation into mouse brains. This #d technology could make transplantation of neurons a viable treatment for a broad range of human neurodegenerative disorders. The new research is supported by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), part of NIH.
Research from Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey examining difficult to treat tumors through genomic profiling shows that tumors with alterations in a signaling pathway responsible for cell regulation may respond to targeted therapy regardless of where the tumor originated in the body.
Experimental evolution of a hermaphroditic nematode proves deterministic maternal effects can give offspring a head start in life.
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