Living Cells News and Research

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Study offers new possibilities for breast and other cancer therapies

Conventional biological wisdom holds that living cells interact with their environment through an elaborate network of chemical signals. As a result many therapies for the treatment of cancer and other diseases in which cell behavior goes awry focus on drugs that block or disrupt harmful chemical signals.

16 Mar 2010

Discovery of MiR-451 molecule may serve as a biomarker for brain tumor

Cancer cells in rapidly growing brain tumors must adjust to periods of low energy or die. When energy levels are high, tumor cells grow and proliferate. When levels are low, the cells grow less and migrate more.

15 Mar 2010

Scientists devise software algorithm to detect medically useful information from whole-blood samples

Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have devised a software algorithm that could enable a common laboratory device to virtually separate a whole-blood sample into its different cell types and detect medically important gene-activity changes specific to any one of those cell types.

8 Mar 2010

High-resolution still images alongside high-speed video footage for detailed scientific imaging

Scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the British Heart Foundation at the University of Oxford have developed a revolutionary way of capturing a high-resolution still image alongside very high-speed video - a new technology that is attractive for science, industry and consumer sectors alike.

15 Feb 2010

Pioneering paper claims Earth's chemical energy powered early life

For 80 years it has been accepted that early life began in a 'primordial soup' of organic molecules before evolving out of the oceans millions of years later. Today the 'soup' theory has been over turned in a pioneering paper in BioEssays which claims it was the Earth's chemical energy, from hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, which kick-started early life.

3 Feb 2010

Two new studies further the understanding of molecular steps in PLC cascade

Two new studies by researchers at the University of Washington further our understanding of the molecular steps in the PLC cascade, a G protein-coupled receptor signaling mechanism that underlies a wide variety of cellular processes, including egg fertilization, hormone secretion, and the regulation of certain potassium channels.

27 Jan 2010

National Science Foundation awards grant to study biological mechanism of living cells

Learning how living cells can detect and respond to electric fields is the aim of a $570,000, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation to Min Zhao, professor of dermatology and ophthalmology at the UC Davis Health System and Center for Neuroscience.

27 Jan 2010

Quorum sensing offers a dynamic approach to increase sensitivity to external signals

Researchers at UC San Diego who last year genetically engineered bacteria to keep track of time by turning on and off fluorescent proteins within their cells have taken another step toward the construction of a programmable genetic sensor. The scientists recently synchronized these bacterial "genetic clocks" to blink in unison and engineered the bacterial genes to alter their blinking rates when environmental conditions change.

21 Jan 2010

Discovery of new class of compounds may help fight hepatitis C

Stanford University School of Medicine scientists have discovered a novel class of compounds that, in experiments in vitro, inhibit replication of the virus responsible for hepatitis C. If these compounds prove effective in infected humans as well, they may dramatically accelerate efforts to confront this virus’s propensity to rapidly acquire drug resistance, while possibly skirting some of the troubling side effects common among therapies in current use and in late-stage development.

21 Jan 2010

Copper-free version of click chemistry crafted to create biomolecular probes

For the first time, the widely used molecular synthesis technique known as click chemistry has been safely applied to a living organism. Researchers with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have crafted a unique copper-free version of click chemistry to create biomolecular probes for in vivo studies of live mice. Conventional click chemistry reactions require a copper catalyst that is toxic to cells and organisms.

20 Jan 2010

GAO: Some meds had 'extraordinary' price hikes over past eight years

A report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued Monday finds that "[p]rices on a growing number of prescription medications have ballooned in recent years as consolidation in the drug industry leaves fewer companies manufacturing niche medications," The Associated Press reports.

12 Jan 2010

Elusive human protein outsmarted

A team of researchers is being recognized for devising a new way to study a human protein that long has evaded close scrutiny by scientists investigating its role in the communication of important genetic messages inside a cell's nucleus to workhorse molecules found elsewhere.

5 Jan 2010

Organogenesis files a PMA with the FDA for its CelTx living cell-based technology

Organogenesis, Inc. announced today that it has filed a Premarket Approval Application (PMA) with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its CelTx(TM), a living cellular construct for oral soft tissue regeneration. If approved, CelTx will be the first, living cell-based technology that is FDA-approved for use in the dental market.

21 Dec 2009

Rice, TMC team wins stimulus funds for nanoparticle standardization

One of the promises of nanomedicine is the design of tiny particles that can home in on diseased cells and get inside them. Nanoparticles can carry drugs into cells and tag cells for MRI and other diagnostic tests; and they may eventually even enter a cell's nucleus to repair damaged genes. Unfortunately, designing them involves as much luck as engineering.

11 Dec 2009

Cyntellect and Boston University sign research collaboration agreement

Cyntellect, Inc., a privately-held life sciences company commercializing products to advance life science and stem cell research, biopharmaceutical production, and drug discovery, today announced it has entered into a research collaboration agreement with the Boston University School of Medicine.

8 Dec 2009

NRC helps Olympus to design and commercialize CARS microscope

The National Research Council Canada (NRC) recently helped Olympus, a world leader in advanced optical microscopy and medical imaging, to design and commercialize a CARS (Coherent Anti-stokes Raman Scattering) microscope.

From Evident Corporation 16 Nov 2009

Novel breakthrough may lead to new methods for sterilizing food and medical equipment

Got food poisoning? The cause might be bacterial spores, en extremely hardy survival form of bacteria, a nightmare for health care and the food industry and an enigma for scientists. Spore-forming bacteria, present almost everywhere in our environment, can also cause serious infectious diseases, such as tetanus, anthrax, and botulism.

12 Nov 2009

Scientists develop new way for exploring the insides of living cells

Scientists in Washington, DC, are reporting development and successful tests of a new way for exploring the insides of living cells, the microscopic building blocks of all known plants and animals. They explode the cell while it is still living inside a plant or animal, vaporize its contents, and sniff. The study appears in online in ACS' journal Analytical Chemistry.

12 Nov 2009

NIDA supports new drug detection research

Every time a person snorts cocaine, it doesn't just go to his or her head: It also provokes a response in the immune system, creating special biomolecules that may serve as a permanent record of each exposure.

11 Nov 2009

Researchers develop new molecular tools to investigate Alzheimer's disease

One of the many mysteries of Alzheimer's disease is how protein-like snippets called amyloid-beta peptides, which clump together to form plaques in the brain, may cause cell death, leading to the disease's devastating symptoms of memory loss and other mental difficulties.

5 Nov 2009