A new computational method developed by scientists from the University of Chicago improves the detection of genes that are likely to be causal for complex diseases and biological traits. The method, PrediXcan, has the potential to identify gene targets for therapeutic applications faster and with greater accuracy than traditional methods.
A world-first underwater study of fish in their natural environment by University of Adelaide marine ecologists has shown how predicted ocean acidification from climate change will devastate temperate marine habitats and biodiversity.
While most of us worry about the fat cells building up on the fleshy parts of our bodies, scientists are paying serious attention to another kind of fat cell deep inside our bones, in the marrow. Today, they’ve published new important clues about it, including a discovery that there are two types.
Utilizing a pharmaceutical treatment for systolic heart failure, that is being tested in clinical trials, new research at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School determined the precise interaction between the drug and the cardiac myosin protein or the cardiac “motor,” forming a structure that regulates the contraction of cardiac muscle and allows the heart to efficiently pump oxygen-rich blood throughout the body.
Researchers from North Carolina State University show that magnetic nanoparticles encased in oily liquid shells can bind together in water, much like sand particles mixed with the right amount of water can form sandcastles.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) scientists have identified stem cells in the liver that give rise to functional liver cells. The work solves a long-standing mystery about the origin of new cells in the liver, which must constantly be replenished as cells die off, even in a healthy organ.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) scientists have identified stem cells in the liver that give rise to functional liver cells. The work solves a long-standing mystery about the origin of new cells in the liver, which must constantly be replenished as cells die off, even in a healthy organ.
In a collaborative study between Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) and the Argonne National Laboratory, scientists have used a highly specialized X-ray crystallography technique to solve the protein structure of hypoxia-inducible factors (HIFs), important regulators of a tumor’s response to low oxygen (hyopoxia).
Researchers walk a fine line in stressing algae just enough to produce lipids that can be converted into biofuel without killing them. In Nature Plants, a team led by U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) scientists analyzed the genes that are being activated during algal lipid production.
A team of scientists believe they have shown that memories are more robust than we thought and have identified the process in the brain, which could help rescue lost memories or bury bad memories, and pave the way for new drugs and treatment for people with memory problems.
Physicists have directly observed, for the first time, how highly charged dust-sized particles attract and capture others to build up clusters particle by particle. This process can lead to the formation of “granular molecules” whose configurations resemble those of simple chemical molecules.
Researchers at McGill University have discovered that to learn new motor skills, neurons within the cerebellum engage in elegant, virtually mathematical, computations to quickly compare expected and actual sensory feedback. They then quickly readjust, changing the strength of connections between other neurons to form new patterns in the brain in order to accomplish the task at hand.
Researchers at UC San Francisco have discovered a neurological mechanism that could explain how songbirds’ neural creativity-generator lets them refine and alter their songs as adults.
Study shows that cell plasticity program resulting from kidney damage can be targeted to reverse disease and fibrosis.
Salk scientists unveil how a critical molecule turns on T cells.
DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) are the worst possible form of genetic malfunction that can cause cancer and resistance to therapy.
High-grade serous ovarian cancer often responds well to the chemotherapy drug carboplatin, but why it so frequently comes back after treatment has been a medical mystery. Now a team of UCLA researchers has discovered that a subset of tumor cells that don’t produce the protein CA125, a biomarker used to test for ovarian cancer, has an enhanced ability to repair their DNA and resist programmed cell death — which allows the cells to evade the drug and live long enough to regrow the original tumor.
Patients with higher levels of a key protein are at greater risk for severe kidney disease
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Northwestern University have engineered a tethered ribosome that works nearly as well as the authentic cellular component, or organelle, that produces all the proteins and enzymes within the cell.
Researchers from Berkeley Lab and Columbia University have created the world’s highest-performance single-molecule diode. Development of a functional single-molecule diode is a major pursuit of the electronics industry.
Rice is the staple food for more than half of the world’s population, but the paddies it’s grown in contributes up to 17 percent of global methane emissions -- about 100 million tons a year. Now, with the addition of a single gene, rice can be cultivated to emit virtually no methane, more starch for a richer food source and biomass for energy production, as announced in the July 30 edition of Nature and online.
University of Adelaide research has shown for the first time that, despite not having a nervous system, plants use signals normally associated with animals when they encounter stress.
The research explains the complex mechanisms of interaction and dynamics between the gut microbiota and its host. Data show that relatively minor changes in microbiota profiles or its metabolic activity induced by neonatal stress can have profound effects on host behaviour in adulthood.
A new technology, improving the efficiency of the studies in epigenomics, is the subject of a Nature Methods journal article by Chang Lu and Zhenning Cao of Virginia Tech and Kai Tan, Changya Chen and Bing He of the University of Iowa. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, following a seed grant from Virginia Tech’s Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science.
Researchers at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Massachusetts General Hospital have created a polymer gel that could allow for the development of long-acting devices that reside in the stomach, including orally delivered capsules that can release drugs over a number of days, weeks, or potentially months following a single administration.
Measurements of iron speciation in ancient rocks were used to construct the chemistry of ancient oceans. Analysis suggests that it took less oxygen than previously thought to trigger the appearance of complicated life forms.
New research by Australian scientists and WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) published today in Nature warns governments against using biodiversity offsetting to meet existing conservation commitments.
New research by Australian scientists and WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) published today in Nature warns governments against using biodiversity offsetting to meet existing conservation commitments.
A biomedical breakthrough in the journal Nature reveals never-before-seen details of the human body’s cellular switchboard that regulates sensory and hormonal responses. The work is based on an X-ray laser experiment at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
In studying how cells recycle the building blocks of DNA, Ludwig Cancer Research scientists have discovered a potential therapeutic strategy for cancer. They found that normal cells have highly selective mechanisms to ensure that nucleosides—the chemical blocks used to make new strands of DNA—don’t carry extra, unwanted chemical changes. But the scientists also found that some types of cancer cells aren’t so selective. These cells incorporate chemically modified nucleosides into their DNA, which is toxic to them. The findings, published today in the journal Nature, indicate that it might be possible to use modified nucleotides for specific killing of cancer cells.
Is it possible that too much iron in infant formula may potentially increase risk for neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s in adulthood -- and are teeth the window into the past that can help us tell?
For the first time, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have produced arrays of semiconductor junctions in arbitrary patterns within a single, nanometer-thick semiconductor crystal.
Increasing the levels of a signaling molecule found in the brain can positively alter response to stress, revealing a potential new therapeutic target for treatment of depression, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers said.
Researchers have found that multiple myeloma patients with a genetic variation in the gene FOPNL die on average 1-3 years sooner than patients without it. The finding was identified with a genetic mapping technique, genome wide association studies (GWAS), and verified in patient populations from North America and Europe. Published in Nature Communications, this was the first study to survey the entire human genome for genetic variation influencing survival, and is a first step toward applying precision medicine to multiple myeloma.
The 11 percent decrease in climate change-causing carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. between 2007 and 2013 was caused by the global financial recession – not the reduced use of coal, research from the University of California Irvine, the University of Maryland, and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis shows.
UAB research shows that phytoplankton, the foundation of all marine life, will experience varied growth rates due to ocean acidification levels during the next century.
Gravity data captured by satellite has allowed researchers to take a closer look at the geology deep beneath the Tibetan Plateau.
Researchers on Mayo Clinic’s Florida campus have identified key differences between patients with sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease) and those with the most common genetic form of ALS, a mutation in the C9orf72 gene.
In recent years, immunotherapy has emerged as a promising treatment for certain cancers. Now this strategy, which uses patients’ own immune cells, genetically engineered to target tumors, has shown significant success against multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells that is largely incurable. The results appeared in a study published online today in Nature Medicine.
NIBIB-funded researchers have developed two near-infrared contrast agents that are efficiently taken up by the thyroid and parathyroid glands following intravenous injection. The contrast agents could be used to help surgeons operate on the glands with greater precision.
A research team funded by the National Institutes of Health has generated a novel system for growing cardiac tissue from undifferentiated stem cells on a culture plate. This heart on a chip is a miniature physiologic system that could be used to model early heart development and screen drugs prescribed during pregnancy. Researchers from the University of California (UC) Berkeley; the Gladstone Institutes, in San Francisco; and UC San Francisco, reported their work in the July 14, 2015, online issue of Nature Communications.
Every parent knows the maxim “feed a cold, starve a fever.” In cancer, however, exactly how to feed or starve a tumor has not been easy to determine.
Researchers at the University of Georgia have developed new tools to study and genetically manipulate cryptosporidium. Their discoveries, published in the journal Nature, will ultimately help researchers find new treatments and vaccines for cryptosporidium, a major cause of disease and death in children under 2 years old.
Salk scientists have created mutation-free lines of stem cells from human patients with mitochondrial diseases.
New research by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center provides the first direct evidence linking traumatic brain injury to Alzheimer's disease and chronic traumatic encephalopathy -- and offers the potential for early intervention to prevent the development of these debilitating neurodegenerative diseases.
Research has suggested yellow perch grow more rapidly during the short winters resulting from climate change, but a new study shows warmer water temperatures can lead to the production of less hardy eggs and larvae that have trouble surviving these early stages of life in Lake Erie.
As bone marrow and lung stem cells are quite similar, the Weizmann Institute’s Prof. Yair Reisner investigated whether transplant methods used for bone marrow might also work for treating lung diseases such cystic fibrosis and asthma. When mice with lung damage were given the new stem cell treatment, their lungs healed and breathing improved.
Scientists discovered that coffee berry borers worldwide share 14 bacterial species in their digestive tracts that degrade and detoxify caffeine. They also found the most prevalent of these bacteria has a gene that helps break down caffeine. Their research sheds light on the ecology of the destructive bug and could lead to new ways to fight it.
Today, Nature is publishing a paper "The evolution of human and ape hand proportions," a study that discovers that human hands may be more primitive than chimp's.
Case Western Reserve researchers have found a new benefit of Kruppel-like Factor 15 (KLF15) — keeping the body in metabolic balance. The findings of the discovery, which appeared last month in the journal Nature Communications, highlight how KLF15 affects the availability of nutrients in the body.
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