General

With support from a $4.3 million National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) grant, the University of Minnesota will be the home of a new Interdisciplinary Consortium for Astrobiology Research (ICAR) program that explores the origins of life. Led by Burckhard Seelig, an associate professor in the College of Biological Sciences, the global […]

Impressive results have been produced in mice via clearance of senescent cells: rejuvenation, extension of life, and reversal of numerous different age-related conditions. This has provoked an increasing number of research groups to focus on the mechanisms of cellular senescence, in search of novel ways to identify and destroy these […]

Dozens of commonly used drugs, including antibiotics, anti-nausea and anticancer medications, have a potential side effect of lengthening the electrical event that triggers contraction, creating an irregular heartbeat, or cardiac arrhythmia called acquired Long QT syndrome. While safe in their current dosages, some of these drugs may have a more […]

Multiple studies have shown that African American women with breast cancer have lower survival rates than white women with the disease. But the association between race or ethnicity and treatment outcomes in triple-negative breast cancer — an aggressive type of tumor that does not respond to hormonal or other targeted […]

A new technology developed by UZH researchers enables the body to produce therapeutic agents on demand at the exact location where they are needed. The innovation could reduce the side effects of cancer therapy and may hold the solution to better delivery of Covid-related therapies directly to the lungs. Scientists […]

An innovative cardiac rehabilitation intervention started earlier and more custom-tailored to the individual improved physical function, frailty, quality-of-life, and depression in hospitalized heart failure patients, compared to traditional rehabilitation programs. Supported by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health, these new study results were published […]

A long noncoding RNA whose function was previously unknown turns out to play an important role in promoting the body’s immune response against cancer and holds promise for enhancing the efficacy of anti-cancer immunotherapy. That’s according to new findings reported in Nature Cell Biology by researchers at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center. […]

Stanford researchers have discovered a new kind of biomolecule that could play a significant role in the biology of all living things. The novel biomolecule, dubbed glycoRNA, is a small ribbon of ribonucleic acid (RNA) with sugar molecules, called glycans, dangling from it. Up until now, the only kinds of […]

Glaucoma involves a high risk of losing sight. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and St. Erik Eye Hospital, among others, have now studied the effects of nicotinamide, the amide of vitamin B₃, on animal and cell models for glaucoma. The study, published in Redox Biology, maybe a future neuroprotective therapy in […]

Tulane University researchers found the bacterium that causes Lyme disease in the brain tissue of a woman who had long suffered neurocognitive impairment after her diagnosis and treatment for the tick-borne disease. The presence of the corkscrew-shaped Borrelia burgdorferi spirochetes in the former Lyme disease patient’s brain and spinal cord were evidence […]

During an inflammatory response, things need to happen quickly: ETH Zurich researchers have recently discovered that certain immune cells that function as security guards can use a shortcut to get from the tissue to lymph nodes. In its response to pathogens and vaccines, our immune system relies on dendritic cells. […]

The individual members of a very small number of species are functionally immortal. These are all lower animals that exhibit a profound capacity for regeneration and lack sophisticated nervous systems, such as hydra or jellyfish. A hydra is essentially a hunger-motivated bundle of stem cells, at least from the perspective […]

Rice University bioengineers are fabricating and testing tunable electrospun scaffolds completely derived from decellularized skeletal muscle to promote the regeneration of injured skeletal muscle. Their paper in Science Advances shows how natural extracellular matrix can be made to mimic native skeletal muscle and direct the alignment, growth and differentiation of myotubes, one of the building […]

The liver serves many critical functions within the human body, including the production of critical proteins, and the removal of waste and toxins. But when damage occurs to the largest organ in the body, many people do not experience symptoms until serious damage has occurred. When the liver becomes scarred, […]

A groundbreaking study led by engineering and medical researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities shows how engineered immune cells used in new cancer therapies can overcome physical barriers to allow a patient’s own immune system to fight tumors. The research could improve cancer therapies in the future for […]

Researchers at UC San Francisco have observed a new feature of neural activity in the hippocampus – the brain’s memory hub – that may explain how this vital brain region combines a diverse range of inputs into multi-layered memories that can later be recalled. Using a special “micro-grid” recording device […]

Did you know that more than 90,000 Canadians are living with multiple sclerosis (MS)? That’s more than the number of people with HIV in the country. And yet it’s not widely talked about. Nathalie Arbour and Catherine Larochelle, researchers at the CHUM Research Centre (CRCHUM) and neurosciences professors at Université de Montréal, along […]

A gene called GAS2 plays a key role in normal hearing, and its absence causes severe hearing loss, according to a study led by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The researchers, whose findings are published online in Developmental Cell, discovered that the protein encoded by GAS2 is crucial […]

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health determined that stomach inflammation is regulated differently in male and female mice after finding that androgens, or male sex hormones, play a critical role in preventing inflammation in the stomach. The finding suggests that physicians could consider treating male patients with stomach inflammation […]

Our body’s relationship with bacteria is complex. While infectious bacteria can cause illness, our gut is also teeming with “good” bacteria that aid nutrition and helps keep us healthy. But even the “good” can have bad effects if these bacteria end up in tissues and organs where they’re not supposed […]

What if you could predict which cells might become cancerous? Breast tissue changes dramatically throughout a woman’s life, so finding markers for sudden changes that can lead to cancer is especially difficult. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Associate Professor Camila dos Santos and her team identified and catalogued thousands of normal human and […]

The membrane pacemaker hypothesis suggests that the lipid composition of membranes, and particularly mitochondrial membranes, is an important determinant of species longevity in at least some clades, such as mammals and birds. Membrane composition determines the degree of resistance to lipid oxidation and consequent loss of function for component parts […]

There are billions of neurons in the human brain, and scientists want to know how they are connected. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Alle Davis and Maxine Harrison Professor of Neurosciences Anthony Zador, and colleagues Xiaoyin Chen and Yu-Chi Sun, published a new technique in Nature Neuroscience for figuring out connections using genetic tags. […]

Despite decades of research and investment, the genetic underpinnings of Alzheimer’s disease are still largely unknown, stymieing efforts at drug development and early diagnosis. To change that, a new grant will support the first comprehensive study to use whole-genome sequencing to address critical gaps in knowledge about the disease. The […]

By combining two medications, researchers at Michigan Medicine optimized therapy for people with gout, a condition that causes severe damage and disability if left untreated. The study revealed how a second drug taken orally more than doubled the effectiveness of Pegloticase, an intravenous gout treatment used to dissolve crystallized uric […]

Researchers here show that intermittent fasting alters the gut microbiome in ways that likely increase the production of butyrate. This metabolite is known to produce beneficial downstream effects, such as upregulation of BDNF and neurogenesis. As research into the gut microbiome in health and aging continues, an increased knowledge of […]

In 2015, researchers at UC San Francisco found a structure inside of tumor cells that biologists had never seen before. Even more surprising, a closer examination of the structure revealed that it contained signaling proteins known as receptor tyrosine kinases, or RTKs, which were thought to reside exclusively on the cell’s […]

Researchers at the University of Bristol have discovered how microbes responsible for human African sleeping sickness produce sex cells. In these single-celled parasites, known as trypanosomes, each reproductive cell splits off in turn from the parental germline cell, which is responsible for passing on genes. Conventional germline cells divide twice […]

Dental and orthopedic implants are widely used around the world. Common causes for implant failure are the immune response against oral bacteria and titanium particles shed by the implant. These and other phenomena can generate an inflammatory response, activating the osteoclasts (bone resorbing cells), and ultimately leading to osteolysis (destruction […]

University of Alberta scientists have identified a receptor in cells that could be key to preventing permanent hearing loss in childhood cancer survivors who are being treated with the drug cisplatin. The researchers believe by inhibiting the receptor, they may be able to eliminate toxic side-effects from the drug that […]