Mice Learn Better with Help from Human Brain Cells
Human astrocytes in a mouse brainSource: Steven Goldman, M.D., Ph.D., University of Rochester Medical Center What happens when you implant human glia—a type of brain cell that protects and nurtures...
View ArticleThe Brain: Now You See It, Soon You Won’t
A post mortem brain is a white, fatty, opaque, three-pound mass. Traditionally scientists have looked inside it by cutting the brain into thin slices, but the relationships and connections of the tens...
View ArticleExploiting Stem Cell Stickiness for Sorting
Caption: Adult human fibroblast cells (left) are reprogramed into human induced pluripotent stem cells(iPS cells). The iPS cells have a characteristic stickiness that lets them to adhere to sorting...
View ArticleThe Beauty of Recycling
Novel proteasome regulation image by Sigi Benjamin-Hong, Strang Laboratory of Apoptosis and Cancer Biology. All cells recycle. Here, we see actin filaments (red) direct unwanted (malformed, damaged, or...
View ArticleProteins Park Free in this Helix
Caption: Protein-making factories in cells resemble a helical parking garage.Credit: Cell, Terasaki et al. I simply couldn’t resist sharing this image with you, even though the NIH didn’t fund the...
View ArticleWhy Redheads Are More Susceptible to Melanoma
We’ve long known that redheads are 10 to 100 times more vulnerable than people with other hair colors to melanoma, a particularly dangerous form of skin cancer. What we haven’t known is why. Why would...
View ArticleFighting Obesity: New Hopes From Brown Fat
Caption: Brown fat—actually marked in green on this image—is wrapped around the neck and shoulders. This “shawl” of brown fat warms blood before it travels to the brain.Illustration: John MacNeill,...
View ArticleSnapshots of Life: Amyloid Glows in Polarized Light
Credit: William Lewis, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta While this may look like one of those bold canvases from the brush of an Abstract Expressionist, it’s actually a close-up of the...
View ArticleDNA Barcodes Interrogate Cancer Cells
Caption: A mix of cells collected from an abdominal cancer. The cancer cells (green) are positive for a cell surface cancer marker called EpCAM. The red cell is a normal mesothelial cell. The nuclei of...
View ArticleCreative Minds: Mapping Molecules in their Cellular Compartments
Alice Ting, Ph.D.Credit: Vilcek Foundation If you were trying to understand how a city functions, it would be useful to map not only its streets and buildings, but to identify all of the people in the...
View ArticleCreative Minds: Engineering Targeted Breast Cancer Treatments
Debra Auguste A few years ago, Debra Auguste, a chemical engineer then at Harvard University, was examining the statistics on breast cancer: the second most common cancer in women in the U.S. after...
View ArticleSnapshots of Life: Wild Outcome from Knocking Out Mobility Proteins
Credit: Praveen Suraneni and Rong Li, Stowers Institute for Medical Research When biologists disabled proteins critical for cell movement, the result was dramatic. The membrane, normally a smooth...
View ArticleLabTV: Curious about Computer Modeling of Proteins
In many ways, Josh Carter is a typical college student, with a hectic schedule packed with classes and social activities. But when he enters a structural biology lab at Montana State University in...
View ArticleCreative Minds: Breaking Size Barriers in Cryo-Electron Microscopy
Dmitry Lyumkis When Dmitry Lyumkis headed off to graduate school at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, he had thoughts of becoming a synthetic chemist. But he soon found his calling in a...
View ArticleHappy New Year: Looking Back at 2016 Research Highlights
Happy New Year! While everyone was busy getting ready for the holidays, the journal Science announced its annual compendium of scientific Breakthroughs of the Year. If you missed it, the winner for...
View ArticleDeciphering Another Secret of Life
Credit: Robin Davies, University of Wisconsin-Madison In 1953, Francis Crick famously told the surprised customers at the Eagle and Child pub in London that he and Jim Watson had discovered the secret...
View ArticleNanoparticle Technology Holds Promise for Protecting Against Many Coronavirus...
A new coronavirus vaccine approach works by attaching many spike protein receptor-binding domains (RBDs) to an engineered protein-based nanoparticle. In mice, the vaccine induced a cross-reactive...
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