Humans have been raising cows for their meat, hides and milk for millennia. Now it appears that the cow immune system also has something to offer. A new study led by scientists from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) focusing on an extraordinary family of cow antibodies points to new ways to make human medicines.
A new study by Boston University researchers provides evidence that Wolbachia target the ovarian stem cell niches of its hosts—a strategy previously overlooked to explain how Wolbachia thrive in nature.
In a pair of distinct but complementary papers, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and colleagues illuminate the functional importance of a relatively new class of RNA molecules. The work, published online this week in the journal Nature, suggests modulation of “enhancer-directed RNAs” or “eRNAs” could provide a new way to alter gene expression in living cells, perhaps affecting the development or pathology of many diseases.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues at the University of Rochester Medical Center, have identified a new mechanism that appears to suppress tumor growth, opening the possibility of developing a new class of anti-cancer drugs.
Researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have determined the role of a key growth factor, found in limited quantities in human skin cells, that helps hair follicles form and regenerate during the wound healing process. When this growth factor, called Fgf9, was overexpressed in a mouse model, there was a two- to three-fold increase in the number of new hair follicles produced. Researchers believe that this growth factor could be used therapeutically for people with various hair and scalp disorders. The study appears in an advance online publication of Nature Medicine.
Findings could have implications in treatment of hereditary neuropathy.
Dr. Jung-Mo Ahn, associate professor of chemistry at The University of Texas at Dallas, has designed and synthesized a novel small molecule that might become a large weapon in the fight against prostate cancer.
The protein GATA-3 plays an important role in mammalian immune response, but its overall function in cell development and cancer formation is not well understood. In an effort to further define the importance of GATA-3, researchers at the University of North Carolina have traced how the protein performs important functions in CD8+T-cell type of the immune system.
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have devised a powerful new technique for finding antibodies that have a desired biological effect. The newly reported technique should greatly speed the process of discovering medicines, diagnostics and laboratory reagents.
Scientists have uncovered a survival mechanism that occurs in breast cells that have just turned premalignant-cells on the cusp between normalcy and cancers-which may lead to new methods of stopping tumors.
Allergens? No. Inflammation? No. An over-active gene that interrupts lipid synthesis appears to be the cause of 20-30% childhood asthma cases.
The recent discovery by a McGill University led team of scientists of a bacterium that is able to thrive at –15ºC, the coldest temperature ever reported for bacterial growth, is exciting because it offers clues about some of the necessary preconditions for microbial life on Mars.
University of North Carolina School of Medicine researchers uncover surprising insights about how nerve cells rewire themselves, shedding light on a process linked with neurodegenerative diseases and neurodevelopmental disorders like schizophrenia and autism.
The human gut is loaded with helpful bacteria microbes, yet the immune system seemingly turns a blind eye. Now, researchers know how this friendly truce is kept intact. Innate lymphoid cells directly limit the response by inflammatory T cells to commensal bacteria in the gut of mice. Loss of this ILC function effectively puts the immune system on an extended war footing against the commensal bacteria a condition observed in multiple chronic inflammatory diseases.
A new study of both computer-created and natural proteins suggests that the number of unique pockets – sites where small molecule pharmaceutical compounds can bind to proteins – is surprisingly small, meaning drug side effects may be impossible to avoid.
Innate lymphoid cells protect boundary tissues such as the skin, lung, and the gut from microbial onslaught. They also have shown they play a role in inflammatory disease. Researchers have found that maturation of ILC2s requires T-cell factor 1 to move forward. They describe in Immunity that one mechanism used to build ILCs is the same as that in T cells. Both cell types use a protein pathway centered on Notch.
Some materials dissolve too quickly, before cardiac arteries can fully heal, and some hang around forever. Zinc, however, may be just right.
Every cell in our bodies runs on a 24-hour clock, tuned to the night-day, light-dark cycles that have ruled us since the dawn of humanity. But new research shows that the clock may be broken in the brains of people with depression -- even at the level of the gene activity inside their brain cells.
Experiments at Johns Hopkins have unearthed clues about which protein signaling molecules are allowed into hollow, hair-like “antennae,” called cilia, that alert cells to critical changes in their environments.
A team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute has found how to boost or inhibit a gene-silencing mechanism that normally serves as a major controller of cells’ activities. The discovery could lead to a powerful new class of drugs against viral infections, cancers and other diseases.
By monitoring the behavior of a class of cells in the brains of living mice, neuroscientists at Johns Hopkins discovered that these cells remain highly dynamic in the adult brain, where they transform into cells that insulate nerve fibers and help form scars that aid in tissue repair.
Wake Forest Baptist research looks at gene expression profiling in breast cancer.
A seven-year quest to understand how breast cancer cells resist treatment with the targeted therapy lapatinib has revealed a previously unknown molecular network that regulates cell death. The discovery provides new avenues to overcome drug resistance, according to researchers at Duke Cancer Institute.
Type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetes appears to increase the risk of heart disease, the leading cause of death among people with high blood sugar, partly by stimulating the production of calprotectin, a protein that sparks an inflammatory process that fuels the buildup of artery-clogging plaque.
Researchers have uncovered mutations in the phosphatase Wip1 that enable cancer cells to foil the tumor suppressor p53, according to a study in The Journal of Cell Biology. The results could provide a new target for the treatment of certain cancers.
The human body contains trillions of cells, all derived from a single cell, or zygote, made by the fusion of an egg and a sperm. That single cell contains all the genetic information needed to develop into a human, and passes identical copies of that information to each new cell as it divides into the many diverse types of cells that make up a complex organism like a human being.
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered why breast cancer patients with dense breasts are more likely than others to develop aggressive tumors that spread. The finding opens the door to drug treatments that prevent metastasis.
Scientists discovered new details about an assembly intricate process in cells and the proteins named chaperones that controls it. Their finding may advance treatments for cancer and neurological diseases.
A mutant protein responsible for Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria syndrome (HGPS) bars large proteins from entering the nucleus, according to a study in The Journal of Cell Biology.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins have identified a gene that, when repressed in tumor cells, puts a halt to cell growth and a range of processes needed for tumors to enlarge and spread to distant sites. The researchers hope that this so-called “master regulator” gene may be the key to developing a new treatment for tumors resistant to current drugs.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison research group has converted skin cells from people and monkeys into a cell that can form a wide variety of nervous-system cells — without passing through the do-it-all stage called the induced pluripotent stem cell, or iPSC.
Whitehead Institute Founding Member Rudolf Jaenisch has efficiently created mouse models with multiple gene mutations in a matter of weeks. Because the method does not require embryonic stem cells, the approach also could allow any animal to become a model organism.
Study of tentacle-formation in a sea anemone shows how epithelial cells form elongated structures and puts the spotlight on a new model organism.
Solving the structure of a critical human molecule involved in cancer, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found what they call a good example of structural conservation—dissimilar genes that keep very similar shapes.
Listening to the hormonal ‘conversation’ between mother and fetus could reveal new opportunities for preeclampsia detection and prevention.
Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have uncovered how an enzyme co-factor can bestow specificity on a class of proteins with otherwise nonspecific biochemical activity. Proteins can have more than one function, but they often need to be very specific in their action or they create cellular havoc, possibly leading to disease.
University of North Carolina researchers have discovered that disrupting a gene that acts as a regulatory switch to turn on other genes can keep blood vessels from forming and developing properly.
Scientists at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna have discovered iron balls in sensory neurons of birds' ears. These cells might be associated with the magnetic sense of birds.
Cancer cells are a problem for the body because they multiply recklessly, refuse to die and blithely metastasize to set up shop in places where they don’t belong. One protein that keeps healthy cells from behaving this way is a tumor suppressor named p53. This protein stops potentially precancerous cells from dividing and induces suicide in those that are damaged beyond repair. Not surprisingly, p53’s critical function is disrupted in most cancers.
Scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston report significant findings about the location, genetic expression and function of human brown adipose tissue (BAT) and the generation of new BAT cells. These may contribute to further study of BAT’s role in human metabolism and developing treatments that use BAT to promote weight loss
When the space shuttle Atlantis touched down in the summer of 2011 at Cape Canaveral, closing the book on the U.S. shuttle program, a team of U.S. Army researchers stood at the ready, eager to get their gloved hands on a small device in the payload that housed a set of biological samples. On Monday at the Experimental Biology 2013 conference in Boston, the team will present the results of nearly two years’ worth of study on those samples, results that shed light on how the human immune system responds to stress and assaults while in space – and maybe here on Earth.
A recent study published by Ludwig scientists in Nature upends the model for how dividing cells monitor the equal distribution of their chromosomes—a process that often runs awry in cancer. By targeting Aurora B kinase, their discovery has overturned the prevailing model of advanced cell division.
UC San Francisco scientists have discovered that muscle repair requires the action of two types of cells better known for causing inflammation and forming fat.
Union with Shc keeps potential troublemaker away from bad company and out of the nucleus.
Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found that alternative splicing – a process that allows a single gene to code for multiple proteins – appears to be a new potential target for anti-telomerase cancer therapy.
A new study co-authored by Boston University Professor of Psychology Michael Hasselmo investigates the function of grid cells by comparing the resonance properties of neurons in rats and bats.
An award-winning image that captures a scene from the delicately performed ballet of mitosis will be displayed on an electronic billboard in New York City's Times Square this weekend, April 20-21.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified a previously unknown biological mechanism involved in the regulation of pancreatic islet beta cells, whose role is to produce and release insulin. The discovery suggests a new therapeutic target for treating dysfunctional beta cells and type 2 diabetes, a disease affecting more than 25 million Americans.
The most recent in a series of studies from a team at the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center has shown that a single molecule is at the heart of one of the most basic survival tactics of prostate cancer cells.
Research suggests a new immunology frontier with evidence that blood contains 1,000's of autoantibodies that bind specifically to antigens from all over the body, clear cellular debris from injury and disease and vary by age, gender and disease state.
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