Molecule developed from marine mollusk overcomes risks of current methods

Human embryonic stem cell (HESC) lines, or cultures, in the U.S. are not suitable for use in the budding field of regenerative medicine. Their creation using mouse feeder cells, a specialized growth medium, allows scientists to study their basic characteristics, but ultimately the HESCs are too risky to develop in applied medicine because mouse-associated viruses possibly contaminate them.

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Ophthalmology researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a key risk factor for the development of cataracts. For the first time, they have demonstrated an association between loss of gel in the eye’s vitreous body — the gel that lies between the back of the lens and the retina — and the formation of nuclear cataracts, the most common type of age-related cataracts.

The researchers reported their findings in the January issue of Investigative Op

In four months, when flower buds spring up from the ground, you may wonder how plants know it’s time to bloom. This question has baffled plant biologists for years. Now, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have an answer: a gene that functions as an alarm clock to rouse certain plants from a vegetative state in the winter to a flowering state in the spring.

According to the researchers, the findings, published in the Jan. 8 issue of the journal Nature, could lead to new metho

Northwestern University researchers have prevented learning and memory deficits in a model of Alzheimer’s disease using a gene-targeting approach to block production of beta-amyloid, or “senile,” plaques, one of the hallmarks of the disease.

Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative condition affecting over 15 million people worldwide that causes memory loss and, ultimately, dementia. Some research suggests that Alzheimer’s disease is caused by an increased amyloid burden in

Georgetown University Medical Center researchers today published the first ever fMRI study of hyperlexia, a rare condition in which children with some degree of autism display extremely precocious reading skills. Appearing in Neuron, the case study uncovers the neural mechanisms that underlie hyperlexia, and suggest that hyperlexia is the true opposite of the reading disability dyslexia.

Hyperlexia is found in very rare cases in children who are on the “autism spectrum,” meaning they

New insights may help brain scientists, diabetic patients, many others

A mystery of basic cell metabolism that has persisted for a century has come a major step closer to giving up its secrets.

Teams of scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a mechanism that triggers increased blood flow to brain cells actively engaged in work. The findings appear in two papers in the Jan. 13 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sci

A research biologist at Wright State University is studying rhythmic cycles in birds to learn if we have a physiological clock in our stomach that determines when we get hungry.

Thomas Van’t Hof, Ph.D., an assistant professor of biological sciences, recently returned from Japan, where he presented lectures and conducted research on circadian (24-hour) rhythms in birds. He visited Okayama University of Science, a sister university of Wright State, plus the University of Tokyo and Nagoya Univ

Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have determined how toxin produced by anthrax bacteria blocks a person’s normal immune response, a discovery that could lead to new treatments for anthrax infection.

In a paper to be published in the January 15th issue of The Journal of Immunology the UCSD scientists show why, in the presence of anthrax toxin, human immune cells fail to respond normally to lipopolysaccharide—a component of the cell walls of many bacteria including the ba

Milestone discovery of the 3-D structure and function of vinculin explains how this protein changes its shape to perform different functions in health and disease

The discovery of how a protein called vinculin undergoes exquisitely precise changes in its shape is helping to answer some major questions about the life of cells, the development of tissues and organs and the spread of cancer from one part of the body to another. These findings, to be published in the Jan. 8, 2004, issue o

Chagas’ disease affects over 18 million people in Latin America. The agent responsible is a protozoan parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, transmitted by haematophagous insects. For survival in the host’s organism, it uses several strategies, but especially one of inhibiting the host’s immune response. Research scientists from the IRD and INSERM (1) who are studying this trypanosome found that one of the proteins it secretes, Tc52, is a virulence factor that plays a pivotal role in the infecti

Ophthalmology researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a key risk factor for the development of cataracts. For the first time, they have demonstrated an association between loss of gel in the eye’s vitreous body — the gel that lies between the back of the lens and the retina — and the formation of nuclear cataracts, the most common type of age-related cataracts.

The researchers reported their findings in the January issue of Investigative O

New method tracking single atoms may lead to improved drug design

Until now, scientists studying the workings of ultra-microscopic forms have had to rely on the scientific equivalents of still photos, something like trying to fathom driving by looking at a photograph of a car. Now, Prof. Irit Sagi and her team of the Structural Biology Department are using new and innovative methods developed at the Weizmann Institute to see real-time “video clips” of enzyme molecules at work. The res

Microscopic Mojave Desert plants growing on the underside of translucent quartz pebbles can endure both chilly and near-boiling temperatures, scavenge nitrogen from the air, and utilize the equivalent of nighttime moonlight levels for photosynthesis, a new study reports. The plants, which receive enough light through the pebbles to support photosynthesis, could offer a model for how plants first colonized land, as well as how they might have evolved on Mars, said the scientists who performed the stud

By revealing the architecture of an essential enzyme in a parasite, Dartmouth researchers are helping address a public health issue.

Researchers in the laboratory of Amy Anderson, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, have unveiled the structure of an enzyme called dihydrofolate reductase-thymidylate synthase, also known as DHFR-TS, from a waterborne parasite called Cryptosporidium hominis. Knowing the chemical structure of the enzyme will help researchers design highly targeted drugs to

Research by North Carolina State University scientists, in conjunction with scientists from the Netherlands and BioResource International, an NC State spin-off biotechnology company, has shown that, under proper conditions, an enzyme can fully degrade the prion – or protein particle – believed to be responsible for mad cow disease and other related animal and human diseases.

These transmissible prions – believed to be the cause of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the technical name fo

Weizmann Institute scientists have succeeded in reversing the metastatic properties of colon cancer cells, in vitro. The findings, published in the Nov. 24 issue of The Journal of Cell Biology, uncover a key process involved in the metastasis of colon cancer cells and raise hopes that target-specific drugs might be devised to prevent, or reverse, the invasive behavior of metastatic colon cancer cells. Colon cancer is the second most prevalent type of cancer in men and third in women in the Western wo