Curated News: National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)

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While engaging in cell division research, Silke Hauf and members of her lab made a surprisingly quiet discovery. When cells express RNA, there are always some fluctuations, or noise, in how much RNA is produced. Hauf’s group found several genes whose noise dips below a previously established minimum threshold, known as the noise floor, during expression “We have solid data for this phenomenon,” said Hauf, associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Virginia Tech.

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Nanozymes—artificial enzymes that can carry out pre-determined chemical reactions—could selectively activate a cancer drug within a tumor while minimizing damage to healthy tissue in a mouse model of triple negative breast cancer.

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Investigators at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have designed an innovative RNA-based strategy to activate dendritic cells—which play a key role in immune response—that eradicated tumors and prevented their recurrence in mouse models of melanoma.

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Scientists have unraveled the step-by-step activation process of a protein with a deep evolutionary history in all domains of life, opening the door to harnessing its functions for use as a biotechnology tool.

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If the human cell is a nightclub, then the nucleus is a VIP lounge fiercely maintained by the nuclear pore complex. By modeling a dynamic simulation of the NPC, Beckman physicists have theorized as to why some proteins enter the nucleus more readily than others.

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Scientists have taken an important step forward in predicting who will develop Type 1 diabetes months before symptoms appear.

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New research has unlocked insights into how “good fat” tissue could potentially be harnessed to combat obesity and remove glucose from the blood, helping to control diabetes. Published today in Science Advances, the work is a collaboration between researchers with the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Cambridge, Free University of Brussels and University of East Anglia.

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A new method than enables researchers to dial up or tone down the amount of a certain metastatic protein inhibitor (BACH1) within a cell could provide a new path in cancer research that reassesses the effectiveness of protein inhibitors to treat disease.

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Researchers at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center have discovered a new nutrient source that pancreatic cancer cells use to grow. The molecule, uridine, offers insight into both biochemical processes and possible therapeutic pathways. The findings, published in Nature, show that cancer cells can adapt when they don’t have access to glucose.

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Researchers from Argonne, Michigan State University and Northwestern University used Argonne’s Bionanoprobe beamline to look at the concentration of zinc in egg cells.

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Genome editing is used to modify the genes of living organisms to elicit certain traits, such as climate-resilient crops or treating human disease at the genetic level. It has become increasingly popular in agriculture, medicine and basic science research over the past decade, and will continue to be relevant and utilized well into the future.

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Strategies to treat pain without triggering dangerous side effects such as euphoria and addiction have proven elusive. Now scientists at Washington University School of Medicine have identified a potential pathway to pain relief that neither triggers addiction nor causes hallucinations.

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A study, led by University of Oregon neuroscientist Shawn Lockery, points to worms as a useful tool for understanding more about the many roles that cannabinoids naturally play in the body. And it could help researchers develop better drugs that target this system.

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A researcher from Wayne State University’s Department of Biological Sciences has received a five-year, $1.95 million grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health to identify mechanisms that regulate inositol synthesis in mammalian cells and determine the cellular consequences of inositol depletion.

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New AI tool accurately predicts both overall survival and disease-free survival after colorectal cancer diagnosis. The model uses visual markers on pathology images to glean insights into a tumor’s genomic profile and predicts tumor behavior, disease progression, treatment response. The new model could help augment clinical decision-making. Because the AI tool relies on images alone, it could be particularly valuable for hospitals lacking the technology or expertise to perform sophisticated genomic profiling of tumor tissues.

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Scientists have made progress in understanding the circadian clock, the 24-hour cycle that synchronizes with light-dark exposure, and how it functions. They developed a new way to study how the circadian clock synchronizes in real time, revealing surprises about the clock’s mechanisms.

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Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have identified variants of a chaperone molecule that optimizes the binding and presentation of foreign antigens across the human population, which could open the door to numerous applications where robust presentation to the immune system is important, including cell therapy and immunization. The findings were published today in Science Advances.

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While COVID-19 may be transitioning from a “pandemic” to an “endemic” phase, it remains critically important to continue tracking the virus in real-time.

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Interdisciplinary research highlighted lipid-protein interaction as a new avenue for oncology drug development, demonstrating its functionality by designing small molecule-based inhibitors to target acute myeloid leukemia.

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Computer software developed at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis can predict what happens to complex gene networks when individual genes are missing or dialed up more than usual. Mapping the roles of single genes in these networks is key to understanding healthy development and finding ways to regrow damaged cells and tissues. Likewise, understanding genetic errors could provide insight into birth defects, miscarriage or even cancer.

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Inmazeb (REGN-EB3), developed by Regeneron, is a three-antibody cocktail designed to target the Ebola virus glycoprotein. The drug was first approved for clinical use in October 2020, but its exact mechanism of action has remained unclear.

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Clemson University researchers have identified an enzyme and its products in humans that reduce diet-induced obesity.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that a defect in an enzyme called APT1 interferes with the ability to secrete insulin, contributing to the development of Type 2 diabetes in people who are overweight or obese.

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A chemistry collaboration led to a creative way to put carbon dioxide to good – and even healthy – use: by incorporating it, via electrosynthesis, into a series of organic molecules that are vital to pharmaceutical development.

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Studying mice, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that proteins made by stem cells to help regenerate the cornea may become new targets for treating and preventing injuries to the cornea related to dry eye disease. When eyes are dry, the cornea is more susceptible to injury.

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Using machine learning and clinical data from electronic health records, researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York constructed an in silico, or computer-derived, marker for coronary artery disease (CAD) to better measure clinically important characterizations of the disease.

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By simulating molecular dynamics, scientists from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital revealed how the selectivity or promiscuity of GPCR coupling relies on the location and duration of intermolecular interactions.

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Binghamton University Assistant Professor of Chemistry Jennifer Hirschi recently received a Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award for $1.93 million from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences to study the mechanisms involved in catalytic reactions.

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Researchers from The RNA Institute at the University at Albany have been awarded $1.4 million to investigate stress-induced RNA modifications and associated cell response. The focus of the study — “wobble uridines” in tRNA — could hold important clues for treating bacterial infections and detecting cancer.

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A highly innovative method using the latest technology has generated a comprehensive list of SARS-CoV-2 viral and human proteins that interact with each other, with one such interaction showing the virus directly influencing proteins that regulate the human immune system.

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Assistant Professor Jianhua Zhao, Ph.D., has been awarded a unique and competitive grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The five-year, $2.4 million grant aims to give researchers greater research flexibility to work on fundamental questions in biology.

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Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists report they have probed the atomic structure of proteins to add to evidence that the wobbles, shakes and quivers of proteins play a critical role in their ability to function. The findings of the research may help scientists design new drugs that can modify or disrupt the intricate “dances” of proteins to alter their functions.

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Gábor Balázsi, PhD, and his research team in the Laufer Center and the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Stony Brook University are embarking upon a new way to research cells, the building blocks of life and often triggers to disease when their behavior changes.

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Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say they discovered that a special sugar molecule could play a key role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. If further research confirms the finding, the molecule, known as a glycan, could serve as a new target for early diagnostic tests, treatments and perhaps prevention of Alzheimer’s disease, say the researchers.

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The University of Kentucky’s Center for Cancer and Metabolism (CCM) will continue its critical mission to research the metabolism of cancer with a renewed Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) grant award from the National Institutes of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health. The prestigious grant — totaling $11.4 million — will continue to fund UK’s CCM over the next five years.

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A family of proteins that have a role in ensuring many types of cells move and maintain their shape may promote disease when they act like workaholics and disrupt the cellular environment, new research suggests.

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Researchers studying how small worms defend themselves against pathogens have discovered a gene that acts as a first-line response against infection. They identified “ZIP-1” as a centralized hub for immune response, a finding could have implications for understanding human immunity against viruses.

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Ever since the first barcode appeared on a pack of chewing gum in 1974, the now-ubiquitous system has enabled manufacturers, retailers and consumers to quickly and effectively identify, characterize, locate and track products and materials. In a paper first posted online Nov. 26, 2021, in the journal Cell, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine and The Johns Hopkins University demonstrate how they can do the same thing at the molecular level, studying the ways cancer cells “talk” with one another.

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Among their many extraordinary feats, some planarian flatworms reproduce by tearing off pieces of themselves to regenerate new worms. Now, researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have discovered that this process is controlled by Hox genes, a family of genes known to orchestrate important aspects of early development.

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Hopkins Medicine researchers say they have found that a protein that helps form a structural network under the surface of the cell’s “command center” — its nucleus — is key to ensuring that DNA inside it remains orderly.

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St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists have identified the primary target of the experimental cancer drug CX-5164, revealing a possible risk for late effects of treatment.

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The NIGMS Human Genetic Cell Repository (HGCR) and NHGRI Sample Repository for Human Genetic Research (SRHGR) now offer high molecular weight (HMW) DNA samples isolated from cell lines in the collections. HMW DNA is useful for long-read next-generation sequencing and studies that investigate large-scale genomic variation such as structural variation.