Researchers have reversed depression symptoms in mice simply by feeding them a probiotic bacteria found in yogurt. They also discovered a specific mechanism for how the bacteria affect mood, providing a direct link between gut health and mental health.
New TSRI Study Points to Potential Strategy to Kill Cancer Cells
Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have devised a versatile molecule-building tool for creating new drugs and other chemical products.
Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center discovered that lipocalin 2, a hormone secreted by bone cells, suppresses appetite in mice. The study findings, which reveal a new mechanism for regulating food intake and blood sugar, could lead to the development of new treatments for obesity, type 2 diabetes, and other metabolic disorders.
Proteins, those basic components of cells and tissues, carry out many biological functions by working with partners in networks. The dynamic nature of these networks – where proteins interact with different partners at different times and in different cellular environments – can present a challenge to scientists who study them.
UCLA scientists pioneered an approach to observe in real time what excites T cells at the nanoscale, pinpointed the pathway that controls immune response and identified drugs that could equip scientists with the ability to manipulate the immune system and control disease.
Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University have shown that the composition of the mitochondrial calcium portal (the protein that regulates when and how much calcium enters) is different depending on the organ in the body, and this difference allows mitochondria to tune their energy output by decoding a pattern of amplitude and/or frequency of calcium oscillations inside a cell. The results, published March 7 in the journal Cell Reports, could shed light on our basic understanding of organ health and disease.
Ovarian cancer researchers have identified a protein biomarker expressed on the surface of tumour cells in high-grade serous ovarian cancer, the most common and lethal subtype of the disease.
Genetic mutations can increase a person’s cancer risk, but other gene “enhancer” elements may also be responsible for disease progression, according to new research out of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
Using red blood cells modified to carry disease-specific antigens, scientists from Whitehead Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital have prevented and alleviated two autoimmune diseases—multiple sclerosis (MS) and type 1 diabetes—in early stage mouse models.
A rise in caloric consumption combined with a decrease in physical activity has contributed to a boom of metabolic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases (e.g., heart failure and stroke).
Researchers from Columbia Engineering and Columbia University Medical Center have—for the first time—maintained a fully functional lung outside the body for several days. They designed the cross-circulation platform that maintained the viability and function of the donor lung and the stability of the recipient over 36-56 hours, used the advanced support system to fully recover the functionality of lungs injured by ischemia and made them suitable for transplant. (Nature Biomedical Engineering 3/6)
A sweeping international effort is connecting the dots between genes in our fat cells and our risk for obesity and cardiometabolic diseases such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes. The researchers have identified approximately 90 genes found in fat that could play important roles in such diseases – and could be targeted to develop new treatments or cures.
By comparing the genetic code of gallbladder cancer patients with those of healthy volunteers at nearly 700,000 different locations in the genome, researchers say they have found several gene variants which may predispose individuals to develop the disease.
Researchers have developed a new way to identify and sort stem cells that may one day allow clinicians to restore vision to people with damaged corneas using the patient’s own eye tissue.
Mount Sinai researchers have discovered that a rheumatoid arthritis drug can block a metabolic pathway that occurs in tumors with a common cancer-causing gene mutation, offering a new possible therapy for aggressive cancers with few therapeutic options, according to a study to be published in Cancer Discovery.
As people get older so do the hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) that form their blood, creating an increased risk for compromised immunity and certain blood cancers. Now researchers are reporting in the scientific journal EMBO that the bone marrow niche where HSC’s form also ages, contributing to the problem. In a study published March 2, scientists in Germany and the United States propose rejuvenating the bone marrow niche where HSCs are created.
Two separate investigations determine that microorganisms can survive on the surface of Mars, and deep in its subsurface
A chemical found in tumors may help stop tumor growth, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago report that increasing expression of a chemical cytokine called LIGHT in mice with colon cancer activated the immune system’s T-cells and caused primary tumors and metastatic tumors in the liver to shrink.
Blocking a protein found on the surface of ovarian cancer cells could prevent or reduce the spread of the disease to other organs, according to new research at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
University of Minnesota researchers have discovered a groundbreaking process to successfully rewarm large-scale animal heart valves and blood vessels preserved at very low temperatures. The discovery is a major step forward in establishment of tissue and organ banks.
Working with yeast and human cells, researchers at Johns Hopkins say they have discovered an unexpected route for cells to eliminate protein clumps that may sometimes be the molecular equivalent of throwing too much or the wrong trash into the garbage disposal.
A research team comprised of members from The University of Kansas Cancer Center, Stowers Institute for Medical Research, and Children’s Mercy are looking at ways to target cancer stem cells to ensure that once a cancer patient goes into remission, they are not at risk of their cancer returning.
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®), through funding from the NCCN Foundation® and Kidney Cancer Association, has published a German translation of the NCCN Guidelines for Patients®: Kidney Cancer.
A new study has identified a previously undescribed role for a type of unconventional T cell with the potential to be used in the development of new therapies for infection and cancer.
Study to look at role of the cytokine interleukin-10 (IL-10) in suppressing antibody production in certain autoimmune disorders.
TSRI's Katja Lamia and her lab members are on a mission to understand how circadian proteins keep us healthy.
Researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Medicine have discovered a new potential strategy to personalize therapy for brain and blood cancers.
Despite its omnipresence, water has many physical properties that are still not completely understood by the scientific community. One of the most puzzling relates to the activity of water molecules after they undergo a process called “supercooling.” Now, new findings from Roma Tre University, in Rome, Italy, on the interactions of water molecules under these exotic conditions appear this week in The Journal of Chemical Physics.
An international team of researchers led by City of Hope’s Bart Roep, Ph.D., the Chan Soon-Shiong Shapiro Distinguished Chair in Diabetes and professor/founding chair of the Department of Diabetes Immunology, has been able to justify an alternative theory about the cause of type 1 diabetes (T1D) through experimental work. The study results were published online today in the journal Nature Medicine.
Choosing among cancer treatments increasingly involves determining whether tumor cells harbor specific, mutated “oncogenes” that drive abnormal growth and that may also be especially vulnerable or resistant to particular drugs. But according to a new study led by UCSF researchers, in the case of the most commonly mutated cancer-driving oncogene, called KRAS (pronounced “kay-rass”), response to treatment can change as tumors evolve, either when a normal copy of the gene from the other member of the matched chromosome pair is lost, or when the cancers cells evolve to produce additional copies of the mutated form of the gene.
Chronic inflammation after a heart attack can promote heart failure and death. University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers have now shown that activated T-cells — part of the immune system’s inflammatory response — are both necessary and sufficient to produce such heart failure.
The regenerative biology team at the Morgridge Institute for Research, led by stem cell pioneer and University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor James Thomson, is studying whether stem cell differentiation rates can be accelerated in the lab and made available to patients faster.
Scientists at The Wistar Institute in collaboration with Roswell Park Cancer Institute found a significant association between a rare genetic variant of the p53 gene present in African American women and their risk of developing breast cancer in premenopausal age.
A study by scientists at Indiana University has found that the master gene that regulates differences between males and females plays a complex role in matching the right physical trait to the right sex. The research, published Feb. 27 in the journal Nature Communications, reveals new details about the behavior of the gene called "doublesex," or dsx.
Scientists at Rutgers and other universities have created a new way to identify the state and fate of stem cells earlier than previously possible. Understanding a stem cell’s fate – the type of cell it will eventually become – and how far along it is in the process of development can help scientists better manipulate cells for stem cell therapy.
A new discovery by researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle makes an important step in identifying which specific T cells within the diverse army of a person’s immune system are best suited to fight cancer. The findings will be published February 24 in Science Immunology.
In a significant advance in improving the safety of donor stem cell transplants, a major clinical trial led by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has shown that a novel agent can protect against the most common viral infection that patients face after transplantation.
Understanding how brown rot fungi degrade wood could lead to new tools for more efficient biofuel production.
The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) recently signed an agreement officially lending its support to the national March for Science rally and teach-in in Washington, DC, scheduled for Earth Day, Saturday, April 22. ASCB was among the first to uphold the event’s mission to “unite the diverse universe of scientists and other community members in a non-partisan manner.”
Current treatments for rheumatoid arthritis relieve the inflammation that leads to joint destruction, but the immunologic defect that triggers the inflammation persists to cause relapses. Now the results of a new study suggest that clinical trials for new rheumatoid arthritis (RA) drugs should shift from their sole focus on relieving inflammation to eliminating the B cells that produce these antibodies.
Genome study shows mixing of European and African H. pylori strains in modern American populations.
Discovery of a dual role played by the enzyme phosphoglycerate kinase 1 (PGK1) may indicate a new therapeutic target for glioblastoma, an often fatal form of brain cancer, according to researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Wistar scientists have shown an anti-diabetic drug can inhibit the growth of melanoma in older patients by activating an anti-aging gene that in turn inhibits a protein involved in metastatic progression and resistance to targeted therapies for the disease.
Story about the first patient enrolled in the new national phase I trial studying the side effects and best dose and schedule of pembrolizumab, an immunotherapy drug, when given together with chemotherapy and radiation therapy following surgery for very high risk head and neck cancer. Pembrolizumab is one of the first immunotherapy drugs.
A Mayo Clinic study has shown evidence linking the biology of aging with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a disease that impairs lung function and causes shortness of breath, fatigue, declining quality of life, and, ultimately, death. Researchers believe that these findings, which appear today in Nature Communications, are the next step toward a possible therapy for individuals suffering from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers screened 10,000 colonies of bacteria found on the epidermis to determine how many had antimicrobial properties and at what rate these are found on healthy and non-healthy skin. In a paper published in Science Translation Medicine, the team reports isolating and growing good bacteria that produce antimicrobial peptides and successfully transplanting it to treat patients with the most common type of eczema, known as atopic dermatitis.
A new, evidenced-based clinical practice guideline on molecular biomarker testing for patients with colorectal cancer identifies opportunities for improving patient outcomes.
UNC scientists found that as mice learn to associate a particular sound with a rewarding sugary drink, one set of prefrontal neurons becomes more active and promotes reward-seeking behavior while other prefrontal neurons are silenced, and those neurons act like a brake on reward-seeking.
MSK researchers used the genome-editing tool CRISPR to create more potent chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells that don't tire as easily when attacking cancer cells. The unexpected findings were published in the journal Nature on February 22 and underscore the potential of genome editing to advance immunotherapy for cancer.
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