Researchers have identified the job of one of the most common DNA-damage response proteins, an enzyme that has puzzled scientists every since it was discovered. DinB DNA polymerase turns out to be a specialist at accurate replication of a particular kind of damaged DNA.
In a study of the travels of the malaria parasite Plasmodium through mammalian tissue, researchers found the parasites developing in an unexpected place: the lymph nodes. The findings could help scientists develop more effective vaccines.
An HHMI-supported undergraduate's research reveals the neurological mechanism used to enter torpor, a hibernation-like state. The finding could help doctors treat stroke patients more effectively.
Scientists in India, led by a Howard Hughes Medical Institute international research scholar, have identified five key genes that enable the bacterium that causes TB to acquire the iron it needs to sustain growth and promote infection.
An innovative way of categorizing myosin, one of three molecular motors that produce movement within cells, has dramatically increased the amount of information available about these essential proteins, laying the groundwork for development of new treatments for many medical conditions.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute wants to shorten the time it takes to translate basic science discoveries into new medical treatments. As a first step, HHMI has awarded $10 million to fund 13 innovative graduate programs that will introduce Ph.D. students to the world of clinical medicine.
For decades, scientists have wondered how living organisms manufacture the essential vitamin B12. Now, using laundry whitener and dirt-dwelling bacteria - everyday ingredients of an undergraduate science experiment - researchers may have found a major clue to solving the mystery.
Researchers in Argentina have determined that night blindness is a new clinical symptom of Chagas disease. They found that the immune systm of individuals with the tropical disease can shut down a key reaction in the retina, causing night blindness.
Using computer-simulated HIV protease molecules, HHMI scientists have identified a potential new drug target for drug-resistant HIV infection.
Researchers studying a lethal canine virus and a related human virus have determined why the canine virus was able to spread quickly from cats to dogs. Their findings provide a new understanding of the molecular factors that enable viruses to jump from one species to another.
The glow emitted by a variety of sea coral helped Russian scientists harness the protein that generates the light to create a tiny fluorescent tag that responds to visible light. The tag should help researchers follow individual proteins as they dart around inside living cells.
Scientists have used the mathematics of information theory to confirm that the songs of humpback whales have their own complex syntax containing the elements of language.
Researchers have demonstrated that they can nearly eliminate production of infectious prion proteins in livestock by using an innovative approach based on RNA interference (RNAi).
Enzymes that can harm the brain immediately after a stroke may actually be beneficial days later. The findings could change the way stroke is treated, extending the window for effective treatment from a couple of hours to a couple of weeks.
Teaching often takes a back seat to research at leading universities. Determined to change that, Howard Hughes Medical Institute has named 20 leading research scientists to energize the undergraduate science classroom. Each will receive $1 million over four years.
A commonly prescribed blood pressure medication may provide the first ray of hope in preventing potentially deadly complications of Marfan syndrome, a genetic disease that weakens the structural meshwork of blood vessels.
Researchers in the West African country of Guinea have discovered the first African hantavirus, a type of rodent-borne virus that can cause life-threatening infections in humans.
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has created the Janelia Farm Research Campus to fill a need for a scientific community that promotes and rewards collaborative, interdisciplinary research.
Researchers have identified a protein that reins in the rogue activity of the molecules that make amyloid-beta peptides, which may prevent normal brain function in people with Alzheimer's disease. Their findings reveal a potentially powerful tool for designing novel Alzheimer's treatments.
People with multiple sclerosis carry immune cells that over-react to Epstein-Barr virus. EBV has long been suspected of playing a role in MS, but the mechanism linking it to the disease was poorly understood. The new findings show the culprit may be a population of T cells that helps boost other components of the immune system in response to EBV.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute is awarding $86.4 million to 50 research universities nationwide to help make undergraduate science education more engaging, accessible, and interdisciplinary.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers at Stanford University have found that they can increase bone mass in mice by tweaking the shape of a regulatory protein. That protein, NFATc1, or other proteins that regulate its activity might make good targets for drugs to treat osteoporosis.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, high school and college students, led by an HHMI professor and an HHMI investigator, have isolated and characterized 30 viruses that infect bacteria. As a result, they are co-authors on a paper in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Phage-hunting engagingly combines education and research.
Certain variants of a simple sugar ameliorate Alzheimer's-like disease in mice, according to a new study by Canadian researchers. Although the studies are still in the early stages, the findings could lead to new therapies that prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
To help young physician-scientists who want to do medical research, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute has awarded 13 Early Career Awards. The awards provide $150,000 over three years to promising physician-scientists in their early years as faculty at academic medical centers.
HHMI researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Harvard Medical School have identified a second mutation in a cell growth pathway that causes certain chronic leukemias. Their findings indicate that drugs that target the JAK-STAT pathway are likely to be effective against leukemias caused by either mutation.
Scientists have identified a key enzyme that the dengue virus uses to replicate, triggering the potentially fatal dengue hemorrhagic fever. The finding could help researchers develop ways to prevent or treat dengue hemorrhagic fever and related viruses that cause West Nile, St. Louis encephalitis, and hepatitis C.
Malaria has been outsmarting the human immune system for centuries. Now, using real-time imaging to track malaria infections in live mice, researchers have discovered one of the parasite's sneakiest tricks"”using dead liver cells to cloak and transport itself back into the bloodstream after leaving the liver.
Scientists have developed a light microscope so powerful that it allows researchers to discern the precise intracellular location of nearly each individual protein they are studying. The new technique, called photoactivated localization microscopy (PALM), far surpasses the resolution of conventional optical microscopes, discriminating molecules that are only two to 25 nanometers apart.
When a faulty protein wreaks havoc in cells and causes disease, researchers are usually quick to point the finger at a wayward gene. Now scientists are learning that some neurodegenerative diseases can develop even though a gene is perfectly normal. The diseases can be caused when the genetic instructions contained in the gene are not executed properly, leading to a lethal buildup of malformed proteins in brain cells.
American and South African scientists working at the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa have discovered how the human immunodeficiency virus "exhausts" killer T cells that would otherwise attack the virus. The researchers found that HIV can simply "turn off" fully functional T cells by flipping a molecular switch on the cells.
Top biomedical scientists from 28 countries will gather at the new Janelia Farm Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) to share data from their latest research into some of the world's toughest medical challenges, such as TB, malaria, and antibiotic resistance.
Research to be presented at the HHMI 2006 International Scholars Meeting, 27-Sep: 1) Beating antibiotic-resistant bacteria; 2) Why TB Is Hard to Kill; 3) Malaria Reveals its Secrets; 4) Marijuana's cousins could be new anti-anxiety drugs; 5) Tiny Conspiracies: Cell-to-Cell Communication in Bacteria.
Research to be presented at the HHMI 2006 International Scholars Meeting, 28-Sep: 1) Taming Anthrax; 2) E. Coli's Salad Days.
Research to be presented at the HHMI 2006 International Scholars Meeting, 29-Sep: 1) Winning the War Against Malaria "” Treatments; 2) Winning the War Against Malaria "” Vaccines; 3) Bugs, Drugs, and Microarrays; 4) Starving Flesh-eating Bacteria; 5) Love Songs of the Sand Fly Siblings.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian scientists were left to scramble for scarce funding, equipment, and supplies. Russia has gone through many changes since then, but the fundamental problems remain. Talk with two leading Russian scientists about the situation in their homeland.
The recent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon made a normally tense situation that much worse for Israeli scientists. Two Israeli scientists can share their personal experiences of trying to conduct biomedical research during a war.
A Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) international research scholar in Israel has discovered one reason why so-called "flesh-eating" bacteria are so hard to stop.
New findings from researchers in France support the controversial idea that an error in a single gene is enough to dramatically alter an individual's susceptibility to certain infections.
More and more people are falling prey to E. coli infection from tainted spinach. E. coli experts like B. Brett Finlay, an HHMI international research scholar at the University of British Columbia in Canada, can explain how the E. coli bacteria place a death grip on intestinal cells.
Thirty-nine outstanding scientists in Latin America and Canada have been named Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) international research scholars. Each will receive a five-year award totaling nearly $500,000.
New research shows that at least 10 percent of genes in the human population can vary in the number of copies of DNA sequences they contain"”a finding that alters current thinking that the DNA of any two humans is 99.9 percent similar in content and identity. This discovery of the extent of genetic variation is expected to change the way scientists think about genetic diseases and human evolution.
Researchers led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) international research scholar Peter St George-Hyslop have identified a new genetic risk factor associated with the most common form of Alzheimer's disease. The research implicates a gene called SORL1 in late-onset Alzheimer's, which usually strikes after age 65.
Researchers have constructed a protein out of amino acids not found in natural proteins, discovering that they can form a complex, stable structure closely resembling a natural protein. Their findings could help scientists design drugs that look and act like real proteins but won't be degraded by enzymes or targeted by the immune system, as natural proteins are.
Researchers have developed a small molecule that can turn the survival signal for a variety of cancer cells into a death signal. The molecule mimics the activity of Smac, a protein that triggers the suicide of some types of cancer cells. The findings suggest that Smac-mimetic compounds could be useful as targeted cancer treatments for lung and other cancers.
The hunt for gene mutations that contribute to autism has proceeded slowly, largely because autism encompasses a spectrum of diseases. Just as its symptoms vary widely among individuals, so do the genetic mutations that cause them. Now, by focusing on large families in which both parents share a recent ancestor, scientists have honed in on rare mutations that remained elusive in previous studies.
Scientists may be able to stave off influenza infection by targeting one of more than 100 proteins inside host cells on which the virus depends. These potential drug targets are the result of a study in which researchers tested the ability of a modified influenza virus to infect fruit fly cells.
Rajesh Gokhale has created a compound in his lab in India that stops tuberculosis by hitting four of the bacterium's crucial metabolic pathways at the same time, weakening and ultimately destroying the pathogen. While his compound is not ready for use in humans, Gokhale said it is a step toward a single drug that targets multiple pathways, which could save time and money over the current multi-drug treatment for TB.
EarthViewer, a free, interactive app designed for the iPad, lets users explore the Earth’s history with the touch of a finger by scrolling through 4.5 billion years of geological evolution.
Researchers have now found stem cells inside the parasite that cause schistosomiasis, one of the most common parasitic infections in the world. These stem cells can regenerate worn-down organs, which may help explain how they can live for years or even decades inside their host.
RSS
Medicine keyboard_arrow_right
Sciencekeyboard_arrow_right
Life keyboard_arrow_right
Business keyboard_arrow_right
Journal News keyboard_arrow_right
By Location keyboard_arrow_right
Meetings, Grants, and Events keyboard_arrow_right