Life Sciences and Chemistry

With a high-tech fix for faulty cellular editing, scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have moved a step closer to developing treatments for a host of diseases as diverse as breast cancer, muscular dystrophy, and cystic fibrosis.

Many human diseases have been linked to defects in a cellular editing process called pre-messenger RNA splicing. Adrian Krainer, a molecular biologist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, has spent years investigating this complex editing process, which t

Researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research are gaining new insight into the molecular players involved in the process of vertebral column formation in the embryo.

A research team headed by Dr. Olivier Pourquie, currently an Associate Scientist at the Stowers Institute, were pioneers in providing evidence for an oscillator called the segmentation clock, a timing mechanism responsible for the periodic production of the somites (the precursors of the vertebrae) in the embr

A Mayo Clinic investigation of Interleukin-6, a hormone inside cells often considered a “bad actor” of the immune system because of its association with inflammation injuries and malignant diseases, shows that it also plays a therapeutic role in mice: it protects brain cells.

Interleukin-6 — called IL-6 for short by researchers — may, in fact, be a “white knight” for mouse brain cells, or neurons, as brain cells also are called. These results, while early, may be promising for humans as w

Researchers are reporting progress in understanding whether a second light-sensing pathway in mammals indeed contributes to the detection of ambient light for controlling body functions.

In an article published in the January 10, 2003, issue of the journal Science, the researchers report that the molecule melanopsin is necessary in order for the pupil to constrict properly in response to light, a function termed the pupillary light reflex.

The latest findings by Howard Hughes Medi

Eating your own brain may not sound like a sensible approach to prolonging your life, but researchers at the University of Rochester have discovered that some single-celled organisms essentially do just that to keep themselves healthy. The findings are published in this month’s issue of Molecular Biology of the Cell.

David Goldfarb, professor of biology at the University of Rochester, studied the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and found that contrary to what biologists have believed, th

Local fisheries part of bigger cycle affecting entire Pacific Ocean

In the late 1930’s, California’s sardines supported the biggest fishery in the western hemisphere, with more than half a million tons of fish caught each year. By the mid-1950s, the sardines had virtually disappeared. Although fishing pressure may have played a part in this process, new research published in the current issue of Science indicates that the sardines’ demise was part of a 50-year cycle tha