Senescent Cells Aid Regeneration in Salamanders. Scientists show that so called senescent cells, i.e., cells that have permanently stopped dividing, boost production of new muscle cells to enhance regeneration of lost limbs in salamanders. Senescent cells, often referred to as “zombie” cells, have long been associated with aging and disease. However, a new study from the Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden (CRTD) at TU Dresden adds to a growing body of evidence that not all senescent cells are harmful. The…
Novel microelectrode array system enables long-term cultivation and electrophysiological analyses. Brain organoids are self-organizing tissue cultures grown from patient cell-derived induced pluripotent stem cells. They form tissue structures that resemble the brain in vivo in many ways. This makes brain organoids interesting for studying both normal brain development and for the development of neurological diseases. However, organoids have been poorly studied in terms of neuronal activity, as measured by electrical signals from the cells. A team of scientists led by…
Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is a lethal pediatric brain cancer that often kills within a year of diagnosis. Surgery is almost impossible because of the tumors’ location. Chemotherapy has debilitating side effects. New treatment options are desperately needed. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Professor Adrian Krainer is best known for his groundbreaking research on antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs)—molecules that can control protein levels in cells. His efforts led to Spinraza®, the first FDA-approved treatment for a deadly neurodegenerative disease called spinal muscular atrophy (SMA)….
Leipzig scientists increase efficiency. One of the most widely used plastics in the world is polyethylene terephthalate, or PET for short. It is everywhere in our daily lives in the form of reusable PET drinks bottles. At the end of the lifecycle of a product containing PET, the environmentally friendly reuse of the PET components through the activity of enzymes is an economically and ecologically interesting alternative to incineration, landfill or purely chemical recycling. A team of researchers from Leipzig…
EPFL researchers have used a nanoplasmonics approach to observe the real-time production of cell secretions, including proteins and antibodies; an advancement that could aid in the development of cancer treatments, vaccines, and other therapies. Cell secretions like proteins, antibodies, and neurotransmitters play an essential role in immune response, metabolism, and communication between cells. Understanding cell secretions is key for developing disease treatments, but current methods are only able to report the quantity of secretions, without any detail as to when…
… world’s leading cause of foodborne infection. Dual vaccine comprising two diarrhea-causing viruses generates antibodies against both. Every year, norovirus causes hundreds of millions of cases of food poisoning — and the deaths of at least 50,000 children — yet there exists no real way to control it. The virus has proven exceptionally difficult to study in the lab, and scientists have struggled to develop effective vaccines and drugs. A new study at Washington University School of Medicine in St….
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, in Cologne, in collaboration with an international team of researchers, have identified natural chemical strategies that bacteria use to keep competitors at bay and successfully proliferate on plants. The study is now published in the journal PNAS. In recent years, the microbiota – communities of microorganisms composed primarily of bacteria and fungi that are found in all eukaryotic organisms, including humans, animals and plants – has come into focus due…
Insights into gene and protein control systems that regulate the use of nitrogen by plant roots could help develop crops that require less nitrogenous fertilizers to produce acceptable yields. Plant biochemist Soichi Kojima and colleagues at Tohoku University discuss their findings and future plans in an article in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science. Nitrogen is such a crucial nutrient for plants that vast quantities of nitrogen-containing fertilizers are spread on farmlands worldwide. These fertilizers mostly contain nitrogen as ammonium…
Our brains are made of billions of neurons, which are connected forming complex networks. They communicate between themselves by sending electrical signals, known as action potentials, and chemical signals, known as neurotransmitters, in a process called synaptic transmission. Chemical neurotransmitters are released from one neuron, diffuse to the others and arrive at the targeted cells, generating a signal which excites, inhibits or modulates the cellular activity. The timing and strength of these signals are crucial for the brain to process…
Using advanced in-situ spectroscopy techniques, scientists at Binghamton University and Brookhaven Lab gain new insights into catalytic oxidation. Researchers at Binghamton University led research partnering with the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN)—a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory—to get a better look at how peroxides on the surface of copper oxide promote the oxidation of hydrogen but inhibit the oxidation of carbon monoxide, allowing them to steer oxidation reactions. They were able…
A UNIGE team has developed a new approach to customize treatments by testing them on artificial tumors. How to determine the most effective treatment for colon cancer? The response to chemotherapy varies greatly from one patient to another. A team from the UNIGE has developed a new method for testing different drugs, without going through the affected person’s body and without resorting to animal experiments. The researchers used organoids – miniature reproductions of organs and tissues – derived from patients…
– organoid emulates the development of the human heart. A team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has induced stem cells to emulate the development of the human heart. The result is a sort of “mini-heart” known as an organoid. It will permit the study of the earliest development phase of our heart and facilitate research on diseases. The human heart starts forming approximately three weeks after conception. This places the early phase of heart development in a time…
Human tissue models instead of animal experiments? What is already possible for some questions still faces major hurdles for more complex contexts and applications. In a joint project of the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, and the Translational Center for Regenerative Therapies at the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research ISC, Würzburg, scientific principles and biomaterials for the standardized production of valid tissue models are to be developed. Modern medicine increasingly relies on three-dimensional human tissue models in preclinical…
Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) Research Grant for Fred Wolf and Pawel Burkhardt. The first brains in the world of animals marked a decisive step in evolution. Living beings could now process information and identify opportunities as well as dangers. But how did the first brains evolve and what form did they take? Pawel Burkhardt from the Michael Sars Centre at the University of Bergen, Norway, and Fred Wolf from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization at the University…
A lower body temperature is one of the most effective mechanisms to prolong the lifespan of animals. Writing in ‘Nature Aging’, a working group at the University of Cologne’s CECAD Cluster of Excellence in Aging Research has now described precisely how this works. The scientists show that cold can prevent the pathological aggregation of proteins typical for two aging-associated neurodegenerative diseases. Cold activates a cellular cleansing mechanism that breaks down harmful protein aggregations responsible for various diseases associated with aging….
For more than 50 years, it has been suspected that fat cells constantly remodel the lipids they store. Researchers at the University of Bonn have now demonstrated this process directly for the first time using culture cells. Among other things, the study shows that the cells quickly eliminate harmful fatty acids. They refine others into molecules that can be used more effectively. In the long term, this turns the components of palm fat into the building blocks of high-quality olive…
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