A team of neuroscience and biochemistry researchers at Stony Brook University have made a novel discovery that illustrates for the first time the difference between amyloid buildup in brain blood vessels and amyloid buildup around brain neurons.
A new study found that decreased levels of the gene p15 represents a way to determine if a nevus, or mole, is transitioning to a melanoma. The protein p15 functions to inhibit nevus cell proliferation.
Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have identified a previously unknown mechanism that helps fortify the structure and tight junctions between epithelial cells — a basic cell type that lines various body cavities and organs throughout the body, forming a protective barrier against toxins, pathogens and inflammatory triggers. Breaches of this barrier can provoke organ dysfunction and development of tumors.
The same compounds that give plants and vegetables their vibrant colors might be able to bolster brain functioning in older adults, according to a recent study from the University of Georgia.
Cells synthesize millions of proteins every minute. Three pioneering protein quality control researchers will explain at ASCB 2016 how studying protein folding and misfolding is opening unexpected pathways for treating cancer and neurodegenerative diseases
Scientists report in Nature Medicine using human pluripotent stem cells to grow human intestinal tissues that have functioning nerves in a laboratory, and then using these to recreate and study a severe intestinal nerve disorder called Hirschsprung’s disease.
The World Stem Cell Summit & RegMed Capital Conference has invited five faculty members from the Nova Southeastern University (NSU) Cell Therapy Institute to present on their research related to advancing new approaches to cancer immunotherapy and regenerative medicine at the organization’s 12th annual meeting.
When HIV attacks a T cell, it attaches itself to the cell’s surface and launches a “harpoon” to create an opening to enter and infect the cells. To stop the invasion, researchers from the Penn Center for AIDS Research at the University of Pennsylvania and scientists from Sangamo BioSciences, Inc. have developed genetically engineered T cells armed with a so-called “fusion inhibitor” to disrupt this critical step and prevent a wide range of HIV viruses from entering and infecting the T cells. The findings were reported today online in a preclinical study in PLOS Pathogens.
An international team of 38 scientists, including Rutgers’ Sonia Tikoo, has shown how large asteroid impacts deform rocks and possibly create habitats for early life on Earth and elsewhere.
New research at the University of Arkansas shows that arginine – one of 20 common amino acids – does not change its positive charge when inserted into the lipid environment of the cell membrane.
Researchers leading the largest genomic tumor profiling effort of its kind say such studies are technically feasible in a broad population of adult and pediatric patients with many different types of cancer.
When microbes inside the digestive system don’t get the natural fiber that they rely on for food, they begin to munch on the natural layer of mucus that lines the gut, eroding it to the point where dangerous invading bacteria can infect the colon wall, new research in mice shows.
An international team of scientists led by the University of Michigan has discovered a new type of photoreceptor—only the third to be found in animals—that is about 50 times more efficient at capturing light than the rhodopsin in the human eye.
Researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have discovered that an ion channel, active within T cells (white blood cells), could be targeted to reduce the growth of head and neck cancers.
Muscular dystrophies, congenital heart muscle defects, and other muscle disorders often arise for reasons that scientists don’t fully understand. Now researchers from the UNC School of Medicine and Baylor College of Medicine have discovered that alternative splicing could play an important role in these disorders.
According to the World Health Organization, 422 million adults across the globe have diabetes. To help the growing patient population, researchers at the University of Michigan are going down to the molecular level. Here, they’re trying to determine what makes cells in the diabetic pancreas less efficient in generating insulin molecules.
A new study led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) describes an unexpected role for proteins involved with our daily “circadian” clocks in influencing cancer growth.
Organisms are in a constant battle against viruses, or transposable elements, which invade their genomes. Among their most effective weapons are silencing pathways that use small RNAs to selectively target invading nucleic acids for their destruction. The molecular understanding of these defense systems has revolutionized modern molecular biology, as they are the basis for powerful genome editing and gene silencing methods such as CRISPR/Cas9 or RNA interference. Scientists from the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology in Austria (IMBA) have now unravelled the precise mechanisms by which germline cells produce a class of small RNAs, called piRNAs, that control transposon silencing in animals.
Living cells respond to biochemical signals by moving toward those at higher concentration, a process carefully mapped out by biologists over the past several decades. But cells also move in response to mechanical forces, such as bumping up against other objects -- although the details of that action have been poorly understood.
An engineer at Washington University in St. Louis discovered a model in which the mechanics of the cells’ environment can predict their movement, a finding that ultimately could mean confining cell transition in tumors and potentially making cancer “a substantially less deadly disease,” said the lead researcher.
In October, we mourned those who died of breast cancer and celebrated all of the women (and men) who have survived. What many of those survivors worry about, though, is that their breast cancer may come back. It has puzzled scientists and health care providers that cancer can suddenly reappear, often with a vengeance, months or years after treatment is over.
Researchers have found new insights into sleep’s importance to overall health: it may give the immune system a chance to regroup at a time when the relative risk of infection is low. As the foundation of the human body’s immune system, large quantities of T cells—a type of white blood cell—are present in the bloodstream and are ready to attack viruses and other pathogens that invade the body. The research team observed that healthy volunteers had greatly reduced numbers of certain T cell subsets within three hours of falling asleep. While it’s unclear where the T cells go during sleep, the researchers have some guesses to where and why they migrate.
A big challenge in cognitive or rehabilitation neurosciences is the ability to design a functional hybrid system that can connect and exchange information between biological systems, like neurons in the brain, and human-made electronic devices. A large effort of researchers in Italy brought together scientists across disciplines to analyze the biocompatibility of the substrate used to connect these biological and human-made components, and investigate the functionality of the adhering cells, creating a living biohybrid system.
Order and disorder might seem dichotomous conditions of a functioning system, yet both states can, in fact, exist simultaneously and durably within a system of oscillators, in what’s called a chimera state. Taking its name from a composite creature in Greek mythology, this exotic state still holds a lot of mystery, but its fundamental nature offers potential in understanding governing dynamics across many scientific fields. Researchers discuss this work in the journal Chaos this week.
Researchers at the University of Oxford have demonstrated that the diets of organisms can affect the DNA sequences of their genes.
Researchers working in Mexico have discovered and named 3 new species of the enigmatic genus Thorius. With adults smaller than a matchstick, these salamanders are the smallest tailed tetrapods and are already endangered.
For people living with sickle cell disease, chronic pain becomes an all too familiar part of everyday life. The UT Physicians Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center is working to help change that.
Michael Crair, Yale University, and Carol Mason, Columbia University, have co-authored a report published online today in the Journal of Neuroscience. “Reconnecting Eye to Brain” is a comprehensive assessment of what scientists know about optic nerve development, regeneration, and reconnection. The report was based on input gathered during the Oct. 16, 2015, panel discussion, titled “Reconnecting Neurons in the Visual System,” sponsored by the National Eye Institute Audacious Goals Initiative (AGI). The panel comprised two dozen leading experts on neural development and regeneration.
After nearly two decades of unsuccessful attempts, researchers from the University of Chicago and the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital have created the first mouse model for the most common form of infant leukemia. Their model replicates the human genetic flaw that causes this disease. It could hasten development and testing of new drug therapies.
Astronauts survive in space by wearing high-tech space suits. But how do brain cancer cells thrive when they migrate to inhospitable sites within the brain?
A multidisciplinary international team of scientists solved the mystery of a recently discovered type of controlled cell death, mapping the path to potential therapies for conditions ranging from radiation injury to cancer. The study, led in part by the University of Pittsburgh, is reported today in two papers in Nature Chemical Biology.
Whitehead Institute researchers have determined how the master transcriptional regulator of the heat shock response, known as heat shock factor 1 (HSF1), is controlled in yeast. Understanding how HSF1 works, how it is regulated, and how to fine tune it in a cell-type specific way could lead to therapies for cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.
Scientists are uncovering clues to what might be unfolding in the relationship between the brain and immune system in those who suffer from long-term repercussions of stress. New research details those connections, specifically that an abundance of white blood cells in the spleen could be sending messages to the brain that result in behavioral changes long after mice experience repeated stress.
Cells are often likened to computers, running an operating system that receives signals, processes their input, and responds, according to programming, with cellular output. Yet untangling computer-like pathways in cells is anything but simple, say Denise Montell, professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Aviv Regev, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Broad Institute. However, both are eager to try and will outline their latest efforts at the “Logic of Signaling” symposium at the 2016 ASCB Annual Meeting.
TSRI Researchers Believe Cell Population May Provide a New Cancer Drug Target
Janelia scientists have developed the first adaptive light-sheet microscope — an instrument that continuously analyzes and adapts to dynamic changes in a specimen and thereby improves spatial resolution.
Yong-Mi Kim, MD, PhD, of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, has been awarded a 3 year translational research program grant from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to study a novel approach to eradicating minimal residual disease in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).
A study led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), in collaboration with scientists at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), Janssen Vaccines & Prevention B.V., one of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson and Gilead Sciences, Inc., has demonstrated that combining an experimental vaccine with an innate immune stimulant may help lead to viral remission in people living with HIV. In animal trials, the combination decreased levels of viral DNA in peripheral blood and lymph nodes, and improved viral suppression and delayed viral rebound following discontinuation of anti-retroviral therapy (ART). The research team’s findings appeared online today in the journal Nature.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins report they have laid the foundation to develop novel antibiotics that work against incurable, antibiotic-resistant bacteria like tuberculosis by targeting an enzyme essential to the production and integrity of bacterial cell walls.
Scientists at The Wistar Institute have demonstrated how a protein called TRAP1 – an important regulator of energy production in healthy and cancerous cells – is an important driver of prostate cancer and appears to be a valuable therapeutic target for the disease.
A Ludwig Cancer Research study shows that an experimental drug currently in clinical trials can reverse the effects of troublesome cells that prevent the body’s immune system from attacking tumors.
RPB-supported vision researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have contributed key data to a new study that identifies a natural compound that slows typical signs of aging in mice. The study, published today in Cell Metabolism, shows that older mice drinking water supplemented with NMN (nicotinamide mononucleotide) resembled younger mice in measures of metabolism and energy production.
Traditional leather manufacturing requires the use of several toxic chemicals, such as halogenated flame retardants or organic antimicrobial solvents, which cause pollution. Now, a team of researchers led by Robert Franz of the Montanuniversität in Leoben, Austria are testing an eco-friendly alternative: silver-titanium nanoparticles.
During the AVS 63rd International Symposium and Exhibition being held November 6-11, 2016, in Nashville, Tennessee, Stephane Evoy, an applied physicist from the University of Alberta, will explain how the team recognized the limited reliability of antibodies in providing bacteria detection with specificity. Instead they used phage-derived proteins, proteins developed from the bacteria-invading viruses, for detection of pathogenic bacteria to address this deficiency. This work has implications not only in disease diagnosis, but also in food and water safety.
An experimental drug that targets abnormally high levels of a protein linked to cancer growth appears to significantly reduce the proliferation of prostate cancer cells in laboratory cell cultures and animals, while also making these cells considerably more vulnerable to radiation, according to results of a study led by Johns Hopkins scientists.
Scientists can now grow 3-D models of lungs from stem cells, creating new ways to study respiratory diseases.
Body clock function can break down when light and temperature levels throughout the day are out of sync, finds new UCL research in fruit flies.
The researchers discovered an important ‘on’ button in DIXDC1 protein that instructs brain cells to form mature connections called synapses with other brain cells during development.
A signaling pathway has the potential to block a type of cancer in the cerebellum, suggests new research from a team at the Krembil Research Institute’s Donald K. Johnson Eye Institute.
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