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Muscle protein titin plays vital role in Frank-Starling mechanism

Researchers at Illinois Institute of Technology and Loyola University have discovered new clues in the 100-year-old mystery of the Frank-Starling law of the heart: What makes the heart contract more strongly at longer lengths given the same level of calcium activation?

10 Feb 2016

Scientists develop potential treatment to prevent hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

More than 15 years ago, David Warshaw, Ph.D., and coworkers discovered the precise malfunction of a specific protein in the heart that leads to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a common culprit in cases of sudden death in young athletes.

7 Feb 2016

Duchenne muscular dystrophy: direct effect on muscle stem cells? An interview with Dr Rudnicki

For twenty years, it has been understood that dystrophin is expressed in differentiated muscle fibers where it is part of a protein complex that crosses the membrane and connects the extracellular matrix to the actin network inside the cell to provide structural integrity.

5 Feb 2016

Using Single-Molecule Studies to Understand Cellular Processes: An Interview with Professor W. E. Moerner

Single fluorescent molecules provide a local nanometer-sized probe of complex systems. We can measure the motion of the single molecule, use them to achieve imaging on a scale down to 20 nanometers, or we can infer aspects of the behaviour of the object under study by the details of the light that is emitted.

From Pittcon 26 Jan 2016

Study on myosins may lead to therapies for muscle diseases, cancers

Understanding how tiny molecular motors called myosins use energy to fuel biological tasks like contracting muscles could lead to therapies for muscle diseases and cancers, says a team of researchers led by Penn State College of Medicine scientists.

22 Dec 2015

New artificial muscle imitates macroscopic movement of human muscles

The macroscopic movement of our muscles is caused by the collective movement of “biomolecular motors”. Scientists and engineers have long been trying to imitate this process.

10 Dec 2015

Scientists reveal why loss of CD73 enzyme in human cancer promotes tumor progression

Scientists have shown for the first time why loss of the enzyme CD73 in human cancer promotes tumor progression.

8 Dec 2015

EMBL scientists develop new laser technique to prevent cells from contracting

You were once a hollow shell. To sculpt that hollow ball into an organism with layers of internal organs, muscle and skin, portions of that embryonic 'shell' folded inwards. The same happens to fruit fly embryos, and researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, have now identified a particular group of cells which are crucial for the first such fold.

23 Nov 2015

Research shows how scientists altered stem cells, triggered bone growth

Imagine you have a bone fracture or a hip replacement, and you need bone to form, but you heal slowly - a common fact of life for older people. Instead of forming bone, you could form fat. Researchers at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine may have found a way to tip the scale in favor of bone formation. They used cytochalasin D, a naturally occurring substance found in mold, as a proxy to alter gene expression in the nuclei of mesenchymal stem cells to force them to become osteoblasts (bone cells).

17 Nov 2015

Rice scientists solve long-standing mystery about hemophilia protein

Rice University scientists have solved a long-standing mystery about where the body stores and deploys blood-clotting factor VIII, a protein that about 80 percent of hemophiliacs cannot produce due to genetic defects.

3 Nov 2015

New fluorescent dye could serve as powerful tool to visualize biological events in living cells

A new photostable fluorescent dye for super resolution microscopy could serve as a powerful tool to visualize biological events and structural details in living cells at real-time for prolonged recording periods.

27 Oct 2015

NIBIB-supported bioengineers work to reduce platelet activation and clotting in patients with VADs

A team of NIBIB-supported bioengineers, aerospace scientists, and cardiovascular clinicians are improving the function of the thousands of life-saving ventricular assist devices (VADs) implanted in advanced heart failure patients each year.

8 Oct 2015

Researchers unlock structural details of key protein to treat neuromuscular disease

Researchers at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine have unlocked the structural details of a protein seen as key to treating a neuromuscular disease.

30 Sep 2015

Key sequence in killer cells captured by Andor revolution microscope

Although much is known of the immune response to antigen-presenting cells, until now the way the body's own killer cells establish an immunological synapse to destroy those target cells has remained unclear. Now, an international research team led by Professor Gillian Griffiths of Cambridge University has resolved the key sequence of events using high-resolution 4D imaging.

15 Sep 2015

Scientists identify new pathway that may protect brain from Alzheimer's disease

It is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease: Toxic protein fragments known as amyloid-β clumped together between neurons in a person's brain.

19 Aug 2015

Researchers reveal how toxins turn healthy proteins into poison to disrupt immune response

Researchers who have revealed a highly efficient way that bacteria use toxins to interrupt the immune response say that until now, the trickery of these toxins has been underappreciated in science.

11 Aug 2015

TSRI study shows single injection of blebbistatin drug prevents methamphetamine relapse in animal models

Recovering addicts often grapple with the ghosts of their addiction—memories that tempt them to relapse even after rehabilitation and months, or even years, of drug-free living.

5 Aug 2015

Researchers decode molecular mechanism of fish toxin that has potential to treat cancer

Pathogenic bacteria develop killer machines that work very specifically and highly efficiently. Scientists from the University of Freiburg have solved the molecular mechanism of a fish toxin that could be used in the future as a medication to treat cancer. The scientists have now published their research in the journal Nature Communications.

25 Jul 2015

Findings shed light on how symmetrical, round cells become polarized and directional

When Greek mythology and cell biology meet, you get the protein Callipygian, recently discovered and named by researchers at The Johns Hopkins University for its role in determining which area of a cell becomes the back as it begins to move.

8 Jul 2015

Research shows how prion-like proteins critical for maintaining long-term memories

Research from Eric Kandel's lab at Columbia University Medical Center has uncovered further evidence of a system in the brain that persistently maintains memories for long periods of time. And paradoxically, it works in the same way as mechanisms that cause mad cow disease, kuru, and other degenerative brain diseases.

3 Jul 2015