Unexpected findings may lead to new research directions in developmental biology
Researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston, who specialize in studying the genetics of rare eye-movement disorders, have found a rare genetic syndrome whose implications go far beyond the eye, raising intriguing questions about human cardiovascular and brain development.
The syndrome involves a mutation to HOXA1, a gene that has been extensively studied in mice, but about which little is kn
New approach could help fight HIV, herpes, flu and antibiotic-resistant bacteria
FINDINGS: First identified more than 20 years ago at UCLA, defensins are peptides naturally produced by the immune system to ward off viruses. However, it was unclear how defensins worked. Now UCLA and NIH scientists have discovered that a specific defensin called retrocyclin-2 (RC2) binds to carbohydrate-containing proteins in cell membranes. This mechanism erects molecular barricades that
Scientists in Italy have found that a drug that blocks acid buildup inside cells revs up the immune response to vaccines. Reporting in the September 19 issue of The Journal of Experimental Medicine, Vincenzo Barnaba and his team at the University of Rome show that people receiving booster shots against hepatitis B virus developed more robust immune responses if given a widely used anti-malaria drug called chloroquine.
Many vaccines are made up of soluble proteins derived from dangerous v
Research could lead to future treatment advancements for rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases
A major finding by researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology (LIAI) has identified a previously unknown cellular mechanism that acts as an off switch for immune system function. The discovery could lead to the future development of new treatments for autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and Crohn’s disease.
According to professor Thomas Kirkwood of the University of Newcastle, there is no single gene for ageing. Throughout time, Humans have used energy to get food, produce offspring and survive danger – not to repair and maintain cells. So the maintenance system in the body slowly breaks down.
This topic was of great interest at the seminar for ageing at the conference “Functional genomics and disease” taking place in Oslo, Norway. Thomas Kirkwood is the director of the internationa
Here’s a test. Take a crayfish, offer it two meals – one the native plants that it eats everyday, the other a gourmet meal of a similar, but exotic species of plant. Conventional biological wisdom predicts it will stick with the tried and true. But new research at the Georgia Institute of Technology suggests that plant eaters may be more adventurous than previously thought and prefer to nosh on exotic meals by a ratio of three to one. The findings, which appear in the September issue of Ecol
New research into one of the world’s most social bacteria – Myxococcus xanthus, has discovered that it has a gourmet style approach to its consumption of phosphates, which provides a key clue to what makes it the most “social” of bacteria.
Myxococcus xanthus is amazingly social and co-operative for a bacterium. It “hunts” as a pack, it makes a collective decision with other M. xanthus whether to go dormant or not, and it even has methods of policing the behaviour of individua
Tricking the body’s immune system into ignoring stem cells will be the key to successful stem cell transplants, according to Professor Maggie Dallman, Imperial College London, speaking today at the BA Festival of Science.
Professor Dallman is investigating how to trick the body into producing regulatory cells, which prevent the body’s immune system from attacking its own molecules, at the site of a stem cell transplant. If they were present when stem cells were introduced into
At the Institut Curie, the CNRS team of Yohanns Bellaïche has just discovered a new cellular component that participates in the organization of cells in the epithelium. This tissue, which forms a barrier between our body and the outside world, is an extremely coherent structure of myriad cells that fit together according to very precise rules. This cohesion holds together the tissues that compose the organs and controls the “comings and goings” of various substances between the outside world and o
The Innovative Regional Growth Core “BioOK” aims to establish the region Rostock-Schwerin – especially the AgroBioTechnikum Groß Lüsewitz – as a competence centre for the analysis, assessment and monitoring of agro biotechnological products and methods. Partners from science and economy co-operate to develop new, efficient and cost effective methods and to bring them to market in the One-top-Agency BioOK GmbH. The Initiative started with funding by the German Ministry of Education and Research,
MBL scientist invents backpack that empowers wearers to generate their own electricity
In an unprecedented breakthrough in the development of portable and renewable human-driven energy sources, an MBL (Marine Biological Laboratory) biomechanics expert who studies how muscle moves skeletons in fish and frogs has invented a backpack that gives new meaning to the term power walking.
In a paper published in the September 9 issue of Science, Lawrence C. Rome, a University of
Human evolution, University of Chicago researchers report, is still under way in what has become our most important organ: the brain. In two related papers, published in the September 9, 2005, issue of Science, they show that two genes linked to brain size are rapidly evolving in humans.
“Our studies indicate that the trend that is the defining characteristic of human evolution–the growth of brain size and complexity–is likely still going on,” said lead researcher for both p
What exactly makes a stem cell a stem cell? The question may seem simplistic, but while we know a great deal of what stem cells can do, we don’t yet understand the molecular processes that afford them such unique attributes.
Now, researchers at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research working with human embryonic stem cells have uncovered the process responsible for the single-most tantalizing characteristic of these cells: their ability to become just about any type of ce
Biologists at New York University have discovered a system by which a random choice between two distinct cellular fates in the fruit fly eye becomes firmly established. Surprisingly, the genes involved are known ’tumor suppressor genes’, i.e. genes that are inactivated in some forms of cancer due to uncontrolled cell proliferation. Because the fly eye is highly amenable to genetic analysis, these findings, published in the latest issue of Cell, could help decipher the mechanisms by which
New research into one of the world’s most social bacteria – Myxococcus xanthus, has discovered that it has a gourmet style approach to its consumption of phosphates, which provides a key clue to what makes it the most “social” of bacteria.
Myxococcus xanthus is amazingly social and co-operative for a bacterium. It “hunts” as a pack, it makes a collective decision with other M. xanthus whether to go dormant or not, and it even has methods of policing the behaviour of individua
Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered a discrete region of the monkey brain that processes pitch, the relative high and low points of sound, by recognizing a single musical note played by different instruments.
Given the similarities between monkeys and man, humans may have a similar pitch-processing region in the brain too, which might one day help those with hearing and speech problems. The paper appears in the Aug. 25 issue of Nature.
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