Feature Channels: Cell Biology

Filters close
Released: 13-Sep-2017 10:05 AM EDT
Arkansas Professor Researches Enhanced Cancer Therapy
University of Arkansas at Little Rock

A University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor is making strides toward developing an effective cancer treatment without the severe side effects of traditional therapies. Dr. Darin Jones, UA Little Rock associate professor of chemistry, envisions a day when patients can battle cancer without chemotherapy side effects such as hair loss, muscle atrophy, and compromised immune systems.

Released: 12-Sep-2017 12:05 PM EDT
Clinical Trials and Cutting-Edge Radiation Oncology Research to Be Featured at ASTRO’s Annual Meeting in San Diego
American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO)

The press program for the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) will feature advances in cancer research, including reports from phase II and III clinical trials. Studies that examine innovative treatments, such as immunotherapy, mental health influences on cancer outcomes and optimal radiation dosing and sequencing, will also be presented at the largest meeting for the field of radiation oncology.

Released: 12-Sep-2017 12:05 PM EDT
CU Boulder Study Shows Bacteria “Shapeshift” in Space
University of Colorado Boulder

Bacteria cells treated with a common antibiotic on the International Space Station responded by shapeshifting, likely to improve their survival chances.

11-Sep-2017 9:00 AM EDT
Engineering Research Center Will Help Expand Use of Therapies Based on Living Cells
Georgia Institute of Technology

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded nearly $20 million to a consortium of universities to support a new engineering research center (ERC) that will work closely with industry and clinical partners to develop transformative tools and technologies for the consistent, scalable and low-cost production of high-quality living therapeutic cells.

   
Released: 12-Sep-2017 10:45 AM EDT
Doctors Can Now Predict the Severity of Your Disease by Measuring Molecules
University of Virginia Health System

The simple new technique could offer vastly superior predictions of disease severity in a huge range of conditions with a genetic component, including Alzheimer’s, autism, cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, schizophrenia and depression.

Released: 12-Sep-2017 10:05 AM EDT
SLU Researcher Discovers How Hibernating Ribosomes Wake Up
Saint Louis University Medical Center

Saint Louis University scientist Mee-Ngan F. Yap, Ph.D.,has uncovered the way a bacterial ribosome moves from an inactive to an active form, and how that "wake up call" is key to its survival.

Released: 12-Sep-2017 10:05 AM EDT
Daniel Jay named new dean of the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences
Tufts University

Daniel Jay, Ph.D., has been named dean of the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts. In addition to his research work in cancer biology, Jay is an established artist, working at the interface of art and science.

Released: 12-Sep-2017 9:00 AM EDT
Accelerating the Development of Next-Generation Cancer Therapies
Christiana Care Health System

The Gene Editing Institute of Christiana Care’s Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute signs agreement with ABS to modify cell lines to accelerate cancer therapies

   
Released: 12-Sep-2017 8:00 AM EDT
Telemonitoring and Automated Messages Improve CPAP Adherence
American Thoracic Society (ATS)

Patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) are more likely to use CPAP, or continuous positive airway pressure, when their use is telemonitored and they receive individualized, automated messages that reinforce therapy adherence, according to a randomized, controlled trial published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Released: 12-Sep-2017 5:05 AM EDT
Georgetown Hosts Global Health Security Expert Beth Cameron
Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University

Beth Cameron, senior director for the Nuclear Threat Initiative’s Global Biological Policy and Programs, will discuss why U.S. leadership continues to be vital in advancing the Global Health Security Agenda’s mission to build a world safe from biological threats on Friday, Sept. 15 at Georgetown University,

8-Sep-2017 1:05 PM EDT
A Newly Identified Mitochondrial Metastasis Suppressor Pathway Controls Metabolic Reprogramming of Tumor Cells
Wistar Institute

A novel mitochondrial variant of the protein Syntaphilin, or SNPH, which orchestrates the choice between cancer cell proliferation and metastasis in response to oxygen and nutrient shortage in the tumor microenvironment, has been identified by researchers at The Wistar Institute.

   
Released: 11-Sep-2017 3:30 PM EDT
Researchers Find That Body Clock, Gut Microbiota Work Together to Pack on the Pounds
UT Southwestern Medical Center

UT Southwestern researchers have uncovered new clues about how gut bacteria and the body’s circadian clock work together to promote body fat accumulation.

Released: 11-Sep-2017 3:15 PM EDT
‘The Science of Consciousness’ Conference – April 2-7, 2018: Loews Ventana Canyon Resort – Tucson, Arizona
Center for Consciousness Studies, University of Arizona

The Science of Consciousness (‘TSC’) is an interdisciplinary conference emphasizing broad and rigorous approaches to all aspects of the study and understanding of conscious awareness. Topical areas include neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, biology, quantum physics, meditation, altered states, machine consciousness, the nature of reality, culture and experiential phenomenology.

Released: 11-Sep-2017 3:05 PM EDT
UCLA opens first engineered blood stem cell clinical trial for cancers with the NY-ESO-1 tumor marker
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Health Sciences

Scientists at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA have initiated a phase 1 clinical trial to test a novel cancer treatment for certain kinds of cancers that have a specific tumor marker called NY-ESO-1.

7-Sep-2017 11:05 AM EDT
Researchers Find “Internal Clock” Within Live Human Cells, Opening Door to Future Discoveries
New York University

A team of scientists has revealed an internal clock within live human cells, a finding that creates new opportunities for understanding the building blocks of life and the onset of disease.

   
6-Sep-2017 5:00 PM EDT
When Ancient Fossil DNA Isn’t Available, Ancient Glycans May Help Trace Human Evolution
UC San Diego Health

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and collaborators discovered a new kind of glycan (sugar chain) that survives even in a 4 million-year-old animal fossil from Kenya, under conditions where ancient DNA does not. While ancient hominin fossils are not yet available for glycan analysis, this proof-of-concept study, published September 11 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, sets the stage for unprecedented explorations of human origins and diet.

7-Sep-2017 2:05 PM EDT
Cell Surface Protein May Offer Big Target in Treating High-Risk Childhood Cancers
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Oncology researchers studying high-risk children’s cancers have identified a protein that offers a likely target for immunotherapy--harnessing the immune system in medical treatments. In cell cultures and animal models, a potent drug attached to an antibody selectively zeroes in on cancer cells without harming healthy cells.

7-Sep-2017 12:00 PM EDT
‘Epigenetic’ Changes From Cigarette Smoke May be First Step in Lung Cancer Development
Johns Hopkins Medicine

Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center say they have preliminary evidence in laboratory-grown, human airway cells that a condensed form of cigarette smoke triggers so-called “epigenetic” changes in the cells consistent with the earliest steps toward lung cancer development.

11-Sep-2017 11:05 AM EDT
Outside-In Reprogramming: Antibody Study Suggests A Better Way to Make Stem Cells
Scripps Research Institute

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found a new approach to the “reprogramming” of ordinary adult cells into stem cells.

   
Released: 11-Sep-2017 11:00 AM EDT
These Mutations Could Be Key to Understanding How Some Harmful Conditions Develop
University of California San Diego

A team of researchers led by a bioinformatician at the University of California San Diego has developed a method to help determine whether certain hard-to-study mutations in the human genome, called short tandem repeats or microsatellites, are likely to be involved in harmful conditions.

11-Sep-2017 10:30 AM EDT
Revolutionary Process Could Signal New Era for Gene Synthesis
University of Southampton

A team of scientists led by the University of Southampton has demonstrated a groundbreaking new method of gene synthesis – a vital research tool with real-world applications in everything from growing transplantable organs to developing treatments for cancer.

   
11-Sep-2017 11:00 AM EDT
The Evolutionary Origin of the Gut
University of Vienna

How did the gut, the skin and musculature evolve? This question concerns scientists for more than a century. Through the investigation of the embryonic development of sea anemones, a very old animal lineage, researchers from the University of Vienna have now come to conclusions which challenge the 150 year-old hypothesis of the homology (common evolutionary origin) of the germ layers that form all later organs and tissues.

Released: 8-Sep-2017 5:00 PM EDT
Study Unlocks How Changes in Gene Activity Early During Therapy Can Establish the Roots of Drug-Resistant Melanoma
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Health Sciences

A UCLA-led study of changes in gene activity in BRAF-mutated melanoma suggests these epigenomic alterations are not random but can explain how tumors are already developing resistance as they shrink in response to treatment with a powerful class of drugs called MAP kinase (MAPK)-targeted inhibitors.

Released: 8-Sep-2017 3:05 PM EDT
Genome Sequence Is Not a Predictor of Radiation Resistance
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU)

Bethesda, Md. – For the last two decades, researchers worldwide have been using whole genome sequencing to understand what makes cells radiation-resistant, hoping to solve an old biological mystery: why is it that one of the most radiation-resistant organisms, Deinococcus radiodurans, aka “Conan the bacterium,” can survive hundreds of times more DNA damage caused by gamma rays than most other organisms? According to a study published recently in Standards of Genomic Sciences by researchers at the Uniformed Services University (USU), the amount of radiation a Deinococcus cell can survive in fact has little to do with the number and types of its DNA repair proteins.

Released: 8-Sep-2017 12:25 PM EDT
Neuroscientists Focus on Cell Mechanism That Promotes Chronic Pain
University of Texas at Dallas

Researchers have discovered a new pain-signaling pathway in nerve cells that eventually could make a good target for new drugs to fight chronic pain.

Released: 8-Sep-2017 11:05 AM EDT
Four Grants in Four Days
Kennesaw State University

ZOWEEEE!! Kennesaw State University’s Office of Research recorded a big first: 4 DIFFERENT researchers garnered 4 NSF grants over 4 days. “This is a really cool story for us,” said Jonathan McMurry, associate vice president for research. “It was almost surreal, every day a new grant coming in!”

       
Released: 8-Sep-2017 10:05 AM EDT
Penn Cancer Biologist Given National Cancer Institute Outstanding Investigator Award
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

M. Celeste Simon, PhD, who studies cancer cell metabolism, tumor immunology, and the influence of oxygen availability and deprivation on tumor growth, has been given a National Cancer Institute Outstanding Investigator Award.

Released: 7-Sep-2017 3:05 PM EDT
Depression Treatment May Be Improving, Tulane Study Says
Tulane University

Researchers associated with the Tulane Brain Institute say they have moved a step closer to improving treatment for chronic depression.

   
Released: 7-Sep-2017 1:05 PM EDT
Better Understanding of “One of the Most Complex Organs” for Better Lung Treatments
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Details of lung cell molecular pathways that promote or inhibit tissue regeneration were reported by Penn researchers. Their aim is to find new ways to treat lung disorders.

31-Aug-2017 12:05 PM EDT
Cancer Immunotherapy May Get a Boost by Disabling Specific T Cells
Columbia University Irving Medical Center

Cancer immunotherapy drugs only work for a minority of patients, but a generic drug now used to increase blood flow may be able to improve those odds, a study by Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers suggests.

6-Sep-2017 9:00 AM EDT
Circadian Clock’s Inner Gears
Harvard Medical School

New study identifies a handful of molecular machines that run circadian clocks, biomechanical oscillators that control physiology, metabolism and behavior on a 24-hour cycle. Findings dispel traditional view that key clock proteins act individually and provide the first structural glimpse of the body’s circadian machine. Identifying protein complexes that operate the circadian clock could eventually lead to new treatments for disorders stemming from malfunctions in the system, including sleep problems, metabolic problems and cancer.

5-Sep-2017 11:05 PM EDT
Human Skin Cells Transformed Directly Into Motor Neurons
Washington University in St. Louis

In new research, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have converted skin cells from healthy adults directly into motor neurons without going through a stem cell state. The technique makes it possible to study motor neurons of the human central nervous system in the lab. Unlike commonly studied mouse motor neurons, human motor neurons growing in the lab would be a new tool since researchers can’t take samples of these neurons from living people but can easily take skin samples.

6-Sep-2017 12:00 PM EDT
Penn Researchers Closer to Uncovering a New Feature in Heart Failure
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Each cell in the average human body contains 23 pairs of chromosomes, with four telomeres on each pair. Telomeres cover the end of the chromosome, protecting it from deterioration or fusion with adjacent chromosomes. While there is a length range for classifying a healthy telomere, researchers found, for the first time ever, that people with heart failure have shorter telomeres within the cells that make up the heart muscle (known as cardiomyocytes). A team of researchers from Penn Medicine, in collaboration with the University of Connecticut, published their findings today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, building on a methods paper which was published recently in Nature Protocols.

6-Sep-2017 12:00 PM EDT
Researchers Find Shortened Telomeres Linked to Dysfunction in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have made a discovery about muscular dystrophy disorders that suggest new possibilities for treatment. In a study published today online in Stem Cell Reports, researchers found that stem cells in the muscles of muscular dystrophy patients may, at an early age, lose their ability to regenerate new muscle, due to shortened telomeres

6-Sep-2017 5:05 PM EDT
Neuroscientists Explore the Risky Business of Self-Preservation
Northwestern University

Northwestern University researchers have learned that the escape response for prey is more nuanced than previously thought. In a study of larval zebrafish, the researchers are the first to find that the animal’s innate escape response incorporates the speed of the approaching predator -- not just the proximity of the predator -- in its calculation of how best to flee. The new information can help scientists understand the neural mechanics that fuel the most elemental self-preservation instincts.

30-Aug-2017 11:00 AM EDT
Researchers Point Way to Improved Stem Cell Transplantation Therapies
The Rockefeller University Press

Researchers in Germany have demonstrated that hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplants can be improved by treatments that temporarily prevent the stem cells from dying. The approach, which is described in a paper to be published September 7 in The Journal of Experimental Medicine, could allow those in need of such transplants, including leukemia and lymphoma patients, to be treated with fewer donor stem cells while limiting potential adverse side effects.

   
Released: 7-Sep-2017 8:05 AM EDT
Growing the Future
West Virginia University - Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

As part of the Center for Bioenergy Innovation led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Steve DiFazio and Jonathan Cumming received $1.25 million to increase the viability of the bioproducts industry by enhancing trees’ biofuel production, while Eddie Brzostek has received $718,000 as part of the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation.

5-Sep-2017 11:05 AM EDT
A Tiny Device Offers Insights to How Cancer Spreads
Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan

Researchers developed a new type of microfluidic device that can cultivate cells for longer periods of time, better reflecting how cancer cells to change over time. The device allowed them to capture the leader cells that would be first to break away and cause metastasis.

6-Sep-2017 1:35 PM EDT
New Link Established Between a Molecular Driver of Melanoma Progression and Novel Therapeutic Agent
Wistar Institute

Wistar scientists have described a correlation between a key melanoma signaling pathway and a novel class of drugs being tested in the clinic as adjuvant therapy for advanced melanoma, providing useful information for a more effective use of this type of treatment.

   
Released: 6-Sep-2017 3:15 PM EDT
Honeybees Could Play a Role in Developing New Antibiotics
University of Illinois Chicago

An antimicrobial compound made by honeybees could become the basis for new antibiotics, according to new research at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

   
Released: 6-Sep-2017 2:05 PM EDT
A Bioactive Molecule May Protect Against Congestive Heart Failure After Heart Attacks
University of Alabama at Birmingham

A form of the fatty acid-derived bioactive molecule called lipoxin improved heart function after a heart attack, as the lipoxin prompted early activation of the resolving phase of the immune response in mice without altering the acute phase.

Released: 6-Sep-2017 1:05 PM EDT
A Touch of ERoS
Harvard Medical School

Researchers interested in the evolution of multicellular life were looking for bacteria that stimulate Salpingoeca rosetta, single-cell saltwater dwellers that are the closest living relatives of animals, to form the rosette-shaped colonies that give them their name. But one bacterium had quite a different stimulating effect: It motivated S. rosetta to have sex.

Released: 6-Sep-2017 10:05 AM EDT
WVU Biologists Awarded $1.4 Million Air Force Grant to Examine Moths’ Olfactory Systems
West Virginia University

West Virginia University biologists Kevin Daly and Andrew Dacks are working to uncover the mystery of corollary discharge functions for the sense of smell. Funded by a four year, $1.4 million Air Force grant, Daly and Dacks are studying an animal with one of the most sensitive senses of smell—moths.

   
Released: 6-Sep-2017 10:05 AM EDT
State Grant to Fund Bobcat Research at Western Illinois University
Western Illinois University

$100,000 state grant from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) will provide research opportunities for faculty and students at Western Illinois University to study the bobcat population in west central Illinois.

Released: 6-Sep-2017 10:00 AM EDT
Woodruff Named Editor-in-Chief of Endocrinology
Endocrine Society

Teresa K. Woodruff, Ph.D., Associate Provost for Graduation Education, Dean of The Graduate School, and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Ill., has been named Editor-in-Chief of Endocrinology, a peer-reviewed journal published by the Endocrine Society.

Released: 6-Sep-2017 10:00 AM EDT
New Generation Drugs May Hold Key to Alternative Erectile Dysfunction Treatment
American Physiological Society (APS)

Close to 70 percent of men with erectile dysfunction (ED) respond to the ED drug sildenafil. However, only about 50 percent of men with diabetes—a population commonly affected by ED—achieve positive results with sildenafil. Researchers from the Smooth Muscle Research Centre at the Dundalk Institute of Technology, in Dundalk, Ireland, are studying two new drugs that may give men with diabetes—and others for whom conventional treatment is ineffective—new hope for treating ED.

5-Sep-2017 7:05 AM EDT
Getting Hook Bending Off the Hook
University of Vienna

The bending of a hook into wire to fish for the handle of a basket by the crow Betty 15 years ago stunned the scientific world. However, the finding was recently relegated as similar behavioural routines were discovered in the natural repertoire of the same species, suggesting the possibility that Betty’s tool manufacture was less intelligent than previously believed. Now cognitive biologists from the University of Vienna and the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna studied tool making in an Indonesian cockatoo. Other than the New Caledonian crows Goffin cockatoos are not using tools in the wild. To the researchers' surprise the birds manufactured hook tools out of straight wire (and in a second task unbent curved wire to make a straight tool) without ever having seen or used a hook tool before.

Released: 5-Sep-2017 5:05 PM EDT
Research Dog Helps Scientists Save Endangered Carnivores
Washington University in St. Louis

Scat-sniffing research dogs are helping scientists map out a plan to save reclusive jaguars, pumas, bush dogs and other endangered carnivores in the increasingly fragmented forests of northeastern Argentina, according to a new study from Washington University in St. Louis.Published Aug. 25 in the online journal PLoS ONE, the study explores options for mitigating the impact of human encroachment on five predators who cling to survival in isolated pockets of protected forest surrounded by a mosaic of roadways, unprotected forest, plantations and pastures.

Released: 5-Sep-2017 4:25 PM EDT
Study Identifies New Metabolic Target in Quest to Control Immune Response
University of Vermont

A surprising discovery that immune cells possess an internal warehouse of glycogen used to activate immune responses could help to increase immune activity in vaccines or suppress immune reactions in autoimmune disease or hyper-inflammatory conditions.

Released: 5-Sep-2017 3:05 PM EDT
Superhuman “Night” Vision During the Total Eclipse?
Ohio State University

It was dark as night during the recent total solar eclipse, yet people and objects were easier to see than on a typical moonless night. Scientists at The Ohio State University have discovered a possible biological explanation – the presence (or absence) of a protein in the retina known as a GABA receptor.



close
3.93138