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Stanford researchers invent new technique to dramatically accelerate protein evolution

All living things require proteins, members of a vast family of molecules that nature "makes to order" according to the blueprints in DNA.

8 Dec 2015

Scientists can accurately measure microbial growth rates inside gastrointestinal tracts

For the first time, scientists can accurately measure population growth rates of the microbes that live inside mammalian gastrointestinal tracts, according to a new method reported in Nature Communications by a team at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Harvard Medical School.

1 Dec 2015

Johns Hopkins researchers develop method to turn stem cells into retinal ganglion cells

Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a method to efficiently turn human stem cells into retinal ganglion cells, the type of nerve cells located within the retina that transmit visual signals from the eye to the brain. Death and dysfunction of these cells cause vision loss in conditions like glaucoma and multiple sclerosis.

1 Dec 2015

Scientists show evidence for exchange of lactate between different brain cells

Nerve cells cover their high energy demand with glucose and lactate. Scientists of the University of Zurich now provide new support for this. They show for the first time in the intact mouse brain evidence for an exchange of lactate between different brain cells. With this study they were able to confirm a 20-year old hypothesis.

25 Nov 2015

Researchers reveal new technique for watching the brain's neurons in action

Researchers at Duke and Stanford Universities have devised a way to watch the details of neurons at work, pretty much in real time.

23 Nov 2015

Findings may lead researchers to create urine-producing kidney through regenerative medicine

Various research groups are collecting different types of cells and turning them into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells that can then generate diverse types of cells and tissues in the body. Now investigators have transplanted kidney tissue made from human iPS cells into a mouse kidney, and they found that the animal's blood vessels readily connect to the human tissue.

22 Nov 2015

NRL researchers to develop next generation of functional materials to map brain connections

Research biologists, chemists and theoreticians at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, are on pace to develop the next generation of functional materials that could enable the mapping of the complex neural connections in the brain. The ultimate goal is to better understand how the billions of neurons in the brain communicate with one another during normal brain function, or dysfunction, as result of injury or disease.

18 Nov 2015

JEDI T-cells provide unique technology to study, visualize immune responses and immunotherapies

When it comes to fending off disease and helping prevent people from falling ill, the body's immune system -- armed with T-cells that help eliminate cancer cells, virus-infected cells and more -- is second to none. But exactly how the immune system works remains, in many ways, a mystery, as there are numerous cell types whose functions and interactions with our immune systems have not been well understood.

5 Nov 2015

Study identifies proteins that could help in treating deafness

Almost 40 million Americans suffer from hearing loss. Right now, there is no way to reverse this condition, largely because auditory hair cells, which sense sound and relay that information to the brain, do not regenerate.

16 Oct 2015

NIH-funded researchers test new gene therapy to improve visual function in mice

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have developed a novel mouse model for the vision disorder Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON), and found that they can use gene therapy to improve visual function in the mice. LHON is one of many diseases tied to gene mutations that damage the tiny energy factories that power our cells, called mitochondria.

6 Oct 2015

New technique allows scientists to see blood-forming stem cells present in the bone marrow

A team of scientists at the Children's Research Institute at UT Southwestern has become the first to use a tissue-clearing technique to localize a rare stem cell population, in the process cracking open a black box containing detailed information about where blood-forming stem cells are located and how they are maintained.

24 Sep 2015

Protein-based modular system could help detect viral infection or kill cancer cells

MIT biological engineers have developed a modular system of proteins that can detect a particular DNA sequence in a cell and then trigger a specific response, such as cell death.

22 Sep 2015

Tumor cells associated with pancreatic cancer work with each other to increase tumor spread

Tumor cells associated with pancreatic cancer often behave like communities by working with each other to increase tumor spread and growth to different organs. Groups of these cancer cells are better than single cancer cells in driving tumor spread, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania published in Cancer Discovery online in advance of the print issue.

13 Aug 2015

HHMI scientists identify stem cells that give rise to functional liver cells

Howard Hughes Medical Institute scientists have identified stem cells in the liver that give rise to functional liver cells. The work solves a long-standing mystery about the origin of new cells in the liver, which must constantly be replenished as cells die off, even in a healthy organ.

6 Aug 2015

New biosensors detect efficient microbial workers that produce chemical, pharmaceutical commodities

Super productive factories of the future could employ fleets of genetically engineered bacterial cells, such as common E. coli, to produce valuable chemical commodities in an environmentally friendly way.

5 Aug 2015

Intracellular microlasers may allow accurate measurement of small changes occurring within cells

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators have induced structures incorporated within individual cells to produce laser light.

30 Jul 2015

New JIC research helps to settle important debate on epigenetic inheritance

New research findings by John Innes Centre scientists have helped to settle an important debate in the field of epigenetic inheritance. Using the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana as a model for their research, Professor Martin Howard, Professor Caroline Dean and members of their labs, have been trying to understand how organisms 'remember' past events at the cellular level.

4 Jun 2015

Researchers make important breakthrough in identifying major drivers of excessive coughing

Cough treatments could change dramatically after the herpes virus helped researchers discover that the respiratory tract links to two different parts of the nervous system.

27 May 2015

New microscopy technique helps researchers to selectively visualize individual cells in living organism

Researchers at ETH Zurich's Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering in Basel have developed a new microscopy technique that enables for the first time to selectively visualize individual cells within the complex, three-dimensional tissue of a living organism.

20 May 2015

Overexpression of cyclin E protein could lead to breast cancer, leukemia

A new study led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute sheds light on the cause of some cancers, including breast cancer and leukemia.

8 May 2015