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.
The skin is presumably the largest and one of the most versatile body organs. By providing a physical barrier, it protects our body from environmental assaults.
A newly published study from York University sheds light on the biological underpinnings in sex differences in obesity-related disease, with researchers observing “striking” differences in the cells that build blood vessels in the fatty tissue of male versus female mice.
A Ludwig Cancer Research study has discovered that the immune system’s surveillance of cancer can itself induce metabolic adaptations in the cells of early-stage tumors that simultaneously promote their growth and equip them to suppress lethal immune responses.
UT Southwestern immunologists have uncovered a key pathogenic event prompted by obesity that can trigger severe forms of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and potential liver failure.
High levels of ammonia in tumors leads to fewer T cells and immunotherapy resistance in mouse models of colorectal cancer, new findings from the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center revealed. Researchers found that ammonia inhibits the growth and function of T cells, which are vital for anti-tumor immunity. The findings appear in Cell Metabolism.
Nerve cells need a lot of energy and oxygen. They receive both through the blood. This is why nerve tissue is usually crisscrossed by a large number of blood vessels.
Investigators from the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai have identified how biological pacemaker cells—cells that control your heartbeat—can “fight back” against therapies to biologically correct abnormal heartbeat rates.
Neuroscience graduate students at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles have developed an automated method that could save time and work for laboratories around the country by streamlining the process of identifying and mapping brain cells. Scientists want to understand how brain cells develop over time because the way these cells, called neurons, develop, influences how they function, or how they malfunction in neurodevelopmental disorders.
Researchers from Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard, using Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source, have characterized the structure of integrins, a type of cell surface receptor involved in the immune response.
Sometimes a name is just a name. Take bears, for example. In Yellowstone National Park, black bears outnumber their brownish-colored grizzly bear cousins, and in coastal areas of the Pacific Northwest, if someone says “brown bear,” they mean grizzly bear. But not all brown bears are grizzly bears.
Scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine say they have developed a computer model — dubbed quantitative fate mapping — that looks back in the developmental timeline to trace the origin of cells in a fully grown organism.
The developing human lung has been mapped in unprecedented detail, identifying 144 cell states in the early stages of life, and uncovering new links between developmental cells and lung cancer.
A landmark study by researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University reveals how a tiny cellular machine called TRiC directs the folding of tubulin, a human protein that is the building block of microtubules that serve as the cell’s scaffolding and transport system.
Investigators at Cedars-Sinai conduct more than 2,500 research projects annually, and many of these studies have resulted in new treatments or have opened the door to future innovations.
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine limits transmission, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19 even among patients infected by variants of the virus, but the effectiveness of antibodies it generates diminishes as patients get older, according to a study by UT Southwestern researchers.
A team of Duke researchers has identified a group of human DNA sequences driving changes in brain development, digestion and immunity that seem to have evolved rapidly after our family line split from that of the chimpanzees, but before we split with the Neanderthals.
Three currently circulating omicron subvariants of SARS-CoV-2 – including two that currently make up almost 50% of reported COVID-19 infections in the U.S. – are better at evading vaccine- and infection-generated neutralizing antibodies than earlier versions of omicron, new research suggests.
Though antiretroviral therapy has made HIV a manageable disease, people living with HIV often suffer from chronic inflammation. This can put them at an increased risk of developing comorbidities such as cardiovascular disease and neurocognitive dysfunction, impacting the longevity and quality of their lives.
Rutgers scientists have developed a new approach to stopping viral infections: a so-called live-attenuated, replication-defective DNA virus vaccine that uses a compound known as centanamycin to generate an altered virus for vaccine development.
After statins, the next leading class of medications for managing cholesterol are PCSK9 inhibitors. These highly effective agents help the body pull excess cholesterol from the blood, but unlike statins, which are available as oral agents, PCSK9 inhibitors can only be administered as shots, creating barriers to their use.
Leprosy is one of the world’s oldest and most persistent diseases but the bacteria that cause it may also have the surprising ability to grow and regenerate a vital organ.
Two new studies from researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle reveal how bacteria infiltrate tumors and could be helping tumors progress and spread and suggest a link between oral health and cancer, as microbes in the mouth are associated with cancers elsewhere in the body. The two papers – one published Nov. 15 in Cell Reports and the other published Nov. 16 in Nature – focus on an oral bacterium called Fusobacterium nucleatum, which has been linked to colorectal cancer.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths globally and a top cause of cancer deaths in the Military Health System. However, the ability to determine which of these patients have aggressive tumors and which will respond better to certain treatments – could soon be available through the collective analysis of proteins and genomes, according to a new study published Nov. 15 in Cell Reports Medicine, led by researchers at the Uniformed Services University (USU).
Researchers at the Icahn Mount Sinai have identified 35 genes that are particularly highly expressed in people with long-term Lyme disease. These genes could potentially be used as biomarkers to diagnose patients with the condition, which is otherwise difficult to diagnose and treat. The findings, published November 15 in the journal Cell Reports Medicine, may also lead to new therapeutic targets. The study is the first to use transcriptomics as a blood test to measure RNA levels in patients with long-term Lyme disease.
Did you ever think of jellyfish or a salamander as fluorescent? That is actually the case. Both animals have proteins in their bodies that enables them to light up.
Cocaine disrupts the balance of microbes in the guts of mice, part of a cycle of waxing and waning neurochemicals that can enhance the drug’s effects in the brain. But the same chemicals may also be harnessed to prevent addiction, according to new research from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.Cocaine increases levels of a hormone called norepinephrine in users’ intestines, triggering an explosion of growth of proteobacteria, a family of microbes that includes the common and sometimes harmful bacterium E.
Scientists investigating the mechanics of the early stages of lung cancer have identified a new potential treatment, which could also aid early detection of the disease.
In the battle of the sexes, women beat men in their ability to recover from kidney injury, but the reasons are not well understood. A study led by Duke Health researchers provides some insights: Females, it turns out, have an advantage at the molecular level that protects them from a form of cell death that occurs in injured kidneys. This protection could be exploited as a potential therapeutic.
Scientists from Trinity College Dublin have unearthed a secret that may explain why some people are able to resist viral infections, having screened the immune systems of women exposed to hepatitis C (HCV) through contaminated anti-D transfusions given over 40 years ago in Ireland.
Scientists in the U.S. and UK illuminated the molecular events underlying an inherited movement and neurodegenerative disorder known as ARSACS – Autosomal recessive spastic ataxia of Charlevoix-Saguenay, named for two Quebec valleys where the first cases were found.
As researchers glean new insights into the dynamic inner world of the human immune system, it has become increasingly clear that mitochondria are critical regulators of how our bodies respond to disease.
Mount Sinai researchers have catalogued thousands of sites in the brain where RNA is modified throughout the human lifespan in a process known as adenosine-to-inosine (A-to-I) editing, offering important new avenues for understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of brain development and how they factor into both health and disease.
A faulty gene, rather than a faulty diet, may explain why some people gain excessive weight even when they don’t eat more than others, UT Southwestern researchers at the Center for the Genetics of Host Defense have discovered.
Researchers at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine have demonstrated in a mouse model that a specific type of T cell, one of the body’s potent immune defenses, produces cytokines that are necessary for the body to acquire immunity against fungal pathogens.