The Scientist, September 9 2010.
Marvels of evolution and adaptation, plants and fungi have developed myriad methods of spreading their seeds or spores. Some of these dispersal events happen with blinding speed, and researchers are exploring these dramatic behaviors in the world’s fastest plants and fungi using ultra-high speed video cameras. Feast your eyes on our smorgasbord of fast-moving, spore-shooting, seed-spreading organisms. Read More >
The Scientist, September 6, 2010.
By controlling how many ribosomes coat a certain mRNA in C. elegans, intracellular insulin signaling can regulate how many copies of a protein are made, and how quickly, giving cells more flexibility when responding to changes in the environment.
The results, published, in the September 8th issue of Cell Metabolism, hold implications for a range of fields, including aging and diabetes, in which insulin signaling is known to play a role. “We have found a new way in which insulin controls the proteins that are made, and some of those proteins are really important for the survival of the worms,” said lead author Gordon Lithgow, of the Buck Institute for Age Research. “That throws up questions as to whether insulin is doing the same in humans and that presents a whole new set of targets for potential therapies or interventions in both aging and diabetes.” Read More >
The Scientist (print), September 2010.
The paper
X. Wang, et al., “Light-mediated activation reveals a key role for Rac in collective guidance of cell movement in vivo,” Nature Cell Biology, 12:591–98, 2010.
The finding
When Denise Montell and her team at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine engineered an actin cytoskeleton-regulating protein to be light sensitive, they discovered it could also control cellular movement in vivo. Read More >
The Scientist (print), September 2010.
In 1990, fresh out of his first postdoc, David Woodland walked into his very own lab at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. All he wanted was to dive into the viral immunology that he had spent years thinking about, but found that a lot of his time was consumed by the other tasks that come with being a principal investigator (PI).
“It was difficult,” he says. “No one had given me guidance in writing grants, or [told me] that I would principally be in a management position.” Twenty years later, he uses his experience to help guide the postdocs at the Trudeau Institute, where he is the director. Read More >
The Scientist, September 1 2010.
Some breast cancer tumors may not originate from stem cells as previously believed, according to a study published in the September 3rd issue of Cell Stem Cell. The discovery is an important step in the development of treatments for these cancers.
“Understanding the origins of these types of breast cancer is not only critical for developing preventative strategies against the disease but also for developing new targeted therapies,” said Matthew Smalley, a mammary cell biologist at the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Centre in London and lead author on the study. Read More >
The Scientist blog August 12th, 2010.
A new virus-sized probe can look deeper into cells than ever before, and finally allows scientists to monitor intracellular activities without disrupting the cells’ external membranes, according to a study published today in Science.
“This is a paper that can bring breakthrough and revolutionary insight into our understanding of intracellular structures,” said Zhong Lin Wang, who develops nanotechnologies at the Georgia Institute of Technology but was not involved in the work. The new device is a type of sensor known as a transistor, which detects changes in electrical activity when touching or inserted into a cell. Read More >
The Scientist blog, August 11th, 2010.
Researchers have revealed new clues to how a defective form of the huntingtin protein may cause the deadly changes that lead to Huntington’s disease — by potentially disrupting the process of neurogenesis, thereby decreasing neural progenitor cells.
“[This is] the first study to demonstrate that normal huntingtin has fundamental developmental roles in mitotic spindle function during development and in the process of neurogenesis,” said Mark Mehler, a neurologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine who was not involved in the study. Mehler previously found that in Huntington’s, and other neurodegenerative diseases, this kind of defect can lead to neuronal death later in life. In Huntington’s disease, mutations in the huntingtin protein lead to progressively severe psychiatric, cognitive, and motor dysfunction through the death of brain cells. Read More >
The Scientist blog, July 27, 2010.
AquaBounty Technologies made big news when they announced they were getting close to approval for their fast-growing transgenic salmon, but this isn’t the only transgenic project with its eyes on our food supply. Several other projects are underway to develop transgenic animals that may eventually make their way into agriculture’s mainstream and end up in your grocery aisle. And scientists aren’t just interested in bigger animals — they’re also looking at making meat that’s more environmentally friendly, and healthier. Read More >
The Scientist, July 26, 2010.
Among stem cell policy changes instituted since U.S. President Barack Obama took office, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) made a controversial move to not renew funding of a key stem cell bank established at the WiCell Institute in Wisconsin. Many scientists worry that without a national center to distribute human embryonic stem cell lines to researchers, the availability, cost and quality of cell lines will suffer as a result. But not all feel this way.
The Scientist spoke with Evan Snyder, a stem cell biologist from the Burnham Institute for Regenerative Medicine in San Diego, who says he doesn’t believe the community needs a nationally-funded bank.
Snyder, whose research focuses on the basic biology of stem cells and their potential applications, believes that in these tough financial times, researchers should do their academic duty and provide their stem cell lines to others at little or no cost, other than that of supplies and shipping. Read More >
The Scientist, July 20, 2010.
A blind, cave-dwelling amphibian appears to live for more than 100 years, an inexplicable feat that may eventually (when explained) provide insights into aging in other species.
But first, scientists have to unravel the mystery of how the species — known as “human fish” — achieves such longevity. “We cannot, at this time, say how this animal manages to survive such a long time,” said eco-physiologist Yann Voituron, from the Université Claude Bernard – Lyon, first author of the study published online today (July 21) in Biology Letters. Read More >