Rutgers-Newark biologist links presence of protein to spread of cancerous cells
Biology researchers at Rutgers-Newark have identified a new link between a specific protein and its role in determining how cancerous cells divide, spread and form new tumors in other parts of the human body. ... ...In the article, "Rho Overexpression Leads to Mitosis-associated Detachment of Cells from Epithelial Sheets: A Link to the Mechanism of Cancer Dissemination," appearing in the August 9...Rutgers-Newark scientist: Mosquitoes may carry lethal parasite
(NEWARK) Brush, then squash. Remember those three words and that technique the next time you catch a mosquito dining on your arm or leg, and you'll go a long way to protecting yourself from a potentially lethal parasitic micro-organism that may be in the mosquito, and is especially dangerous to those with weakened immune systems....... A study by Rutgers-Newark biology professor Ann Cali and oth...Rutgers cancer prevention expert calls for FDA action to reduce colon cancer and osteoporosis
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Rutgers veteran cancer prevention expert Harold Newmark knows how to simultaneously achieve a 20 percent reduction in colon cancer deaths and osteoporosis-related fractures. Now he's calling upon the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to help make this happen. ... ...Newmark's call to action involves the simple addition of calcium and vitamin D t...Rutgers chemist uses NMR to elucidate protein-DNA interaction
NEWARK — Determining exactly how proteins connect with specific DNA sequences in human cells has eluded researchers and scientists for years. While it has been possible to record the speed at which a protein could bond with DNA, little was known about how proteins located and connected with a specific pattern of DNA to allow genes to express themselves in the form of traits such as facial ap...Rutgers scientists discover protein in brain affects learning and memory
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. Rutgers researchers have discovered what could be the newest target for drugs in the treatment of memory and learning disabilities as well as diseases such as Alzheimer's and fetal alcohol syndrome: a protein known as cypin....... Cypin is found throughout the body, but in the brain it regulates nerve cell or neuron branching. Branching or dendrite growth is an im...Rutgers researcher discovers melanoma causing gene
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. -- Rutgers Associate Professor Suzie Chen has discovered a gene responsible for melanoma, the most aggressive form of malignant skin cancer. A paper describing the research by Chen and her colleagues at the National Human Genome Research Institute will be published online by Nature Genetics on April 21, and will appear subsequently in a print issue of the journal....Ocean dye to help Rutgers scientists trace Hudson River's path miles into the Atlantic
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. Shipboard marine scientists from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, will release a nontoxic red dye into the Atlantic Ocean off New Jersey during the week of May 2 to help reveal the contents and fate of Hudson River water after it joins the Atlantic.... ...The dye release is the first of three experiments in Rutgers' ongoing study of the Hudson River Plu...Rutgers ecologists and Brooklyn Botanic Garden botanists to plan Beijing Olympics Forest Park
New Brunswick, NJ-- Ecologists at Rutgers' Cook College & New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (NJAES) and botanists from Brooklyn Botanic Garden have been selected as the winning team in the international competition to design the new Forest Park for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games. The ecologists and botanists are affiliated with the Center for Urban Restoration Ecology (CURE), a co...Radioactive and toxic waste site plans are a recipe for disaster, says Rutgers sociologist
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. Federal government plans for more than 100 radioactive and toxic waste sites are fantasy and wishful thinking, says world-renowned disaster expert Lee Clarke, associate professor of sociology at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.... ... In a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle Monday (F...Rutgers researcher offers a new perspective on human evolution
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. The fossil remains of early humans gave generations of scientists the clues needed to piece together much of our ancestral lineage. Chi-Hua Chiu now leads us into another dimension in the study of human origins: the underlying developmental and genetic processes that led to these remarkable evolutionary changes.... ..."To develop a better understanding of the gen...President Bush names Rutgers' Evelyn Witkin for nations highest science honor
...NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. -- President George W. Bush today named Evelyn M. Witkin, Barbara McClintock Professor Emerita at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, a recipient of the 2002 National Medal of Science, the nation's highest science and engineering honor....... Witkin, a Princeton resident, is one of eight honorees selected and the 30th woman to receive the medal, which w...Rutgers geneticist to battle autism with $3.7 million NIH grant
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. Linda Brzustowicz, an associate professor in Rutgers' department of genetics, has been awarded a five-year, $3.7 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to investigate the genetic basis of autism. The disorder, which has no known cure, is tied to a child's early brain development and is usually diagnosed in the first three years of life. The grant was...Grant of powerful computer to Rutgers-Newark will increase understanding of brain activity
(NEWARK) Rutgers-Newark has been chosen as one of only 19 research universities nationwide to receive a powerful new state-of-the-art computer through a grant from Hewlett-Packard. The computer will be used to dramatically enhance scientists' ability to analyze brain activity and will give them the computing power to develop an educational visual model of a brain in action, which will be created...Rutgers targets Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan with $3.5 million from NIH
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. Ilya Raskin is going hunting in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan for plants, fungi and microbes with pharmaceutical potential. With approximately ...$3.5 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Raskin, a member of the Biotechnology Center for Agriculture and the Environment at Rutgers' Cook College, has engaged colleagues in these Central Asian countries a...Rutgers to create ultra-tiny 'bio-nano' motors under National Science Foundation grant
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. Three engineering departments at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey mechanical and aerospace, biomedical, and chemical and biochemical are teaming up to create a prototype of an ultra-tiny motor small enough to be part of a system that could eventually travel patients' bloodstreams to help repair damaged cells, organs and DNA. ......A prototype of the...Collaborative grant to Rutgers and Rep. of Georgia for salmonella research
Washington, D.C. -- U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) today announced a cooperative research anti-terrorism grant of $100,000 to a team of scientists from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and the former Soviet Republic of Georgia to work on the development of a treatment against drug-resistant salmonella bacteria. The grant comes from the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foun...Rutgers scientists post a genetic road map to sources of disease
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. Rutgers geneticist Tara Matise and her colleagues have produced a map that will help pinpoint the genes linked to such serious diseases as diabetes, high blood pressure and schizophrenia.... ...This linkage map is based on the amount of the interaction or recombination taking place among nearly 3,000 genetic markers whose positions are known. The markers used for...Rutgers geneticists redefine the nature of hybrid corn
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. Scientists at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, have unlocked an important door to understanding one of the most important crops in the world corn. Researchers at Rutgers' Waksman Institute of Microbiology have redefined the nature of heterosis or hybrid vigor, the phenomenon underlying corn's remarkable success. Heterosis is the robustness seen in h...NIH awards millions to Rutgers for genetics research
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. Rutgers will be home to a new genetics resource for scientists worldwide intent on solving the hereditary puzzles at the core of such diseases as diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease and kidney disorders. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), a unit of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has awarded a five-year, $9.3 mil...Rutgers receives $22.6 million to investigate genetics of mental disorders
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. -- Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, has been awarded a $22.6 million, five-year grant by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to establish the Center for Collaborative Genetic Studies on Mental Disorders. The award is the result of a national competition lasting eight months and involving several levels of review by scientists throughout the U...Rutgers research takes aim at world hunger
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. -- Scientists at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and their colleagues have announced completion of the sequencing of the genetic structure of rice chromosome 10 - the first to date. Their novel approach, which defined both the order of the genes and their physical locations, is a major step in the direction of improved yield and productivity of the wor...Rutgers researchers test polymer reliability for medical implants
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. Sascha Abramson has been investigating new methods to ensure that polymer medical implants in the human body dont fail. Abramson looked at degradable polymers, ones the body can ultimately absorb, to gain a deeper understanding of how and why their structures change crucial parts of a puzzle that must be solved for polymers to perform predictably and successfull...Rutgers researcher advances understanding of attention deficit disorder and schizophrenia
A Rutgers-Newark researcher is using magnetic imaging to paint a revealing and groundbreaking picture of the brains activities as it reacts to real-world events. ......By looking at these brain signals in real time, as things occur, we may be able to extract the underlying grammar that occurs as one area [of the brain] talks to another, said Stephen Hanson, chair of the psychology department at...Rutgers' Tanzanian fossil reshuffles the deck on early human ancestry
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. - The fossilized jaw of a 1.8 million-year-old...human ancestor (hominid) from Tanzania may just be one of the five best specimens out of about 50 known to represent the earliest members of the genus Homo (H) the genus to which the...human species belongs. ... ... In the Feb. 21 issue of the journal Science, Rutgers anthropology Professor Robert Blumensch...Rutgers explorer describes sea floor hot springs as teeming with valuable minerals and microbes
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. With only about 5 percent of the sea floor explored in detail, a picture is emerging of a vast system of natural undersea dynamos, fueled by hot springs, that produce not only valuable mineral deposits, but habitats for unique, heat-loving organisms that can provide materials for products ranging from detergents to pharmaceuticals.... That is the view of marine ge...Rutgers-led consortium awarded $6.5 million by NIH for genomic research
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. The National Institute of General Medical Sciences, a unit of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), through its Protein Structures Initiative has awarded more than $6.5 million to a Rutgers-led collaborative research partnership the Northeast Structural Genomics Consortium (NESG). This one-year grant constitutes the third year of funding for a five-year, $27...Rutgers anthropologist, Fossey Fund official, announces plan to save Rwanda's mountain gorillas
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. Rutgers anthropology Professor H. Dieter Steklis, chief scientist and vice president of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, has announced the fund's action plan to halt a recent poaching spree that has left six mountain gorillas dead, one infant in temporary captivity and several others missing in Rwanda....... Immediate preparations are being made to re-es...Rutgers and Albert Einstein College of Medicine researchers seek fountain of youth among the worms
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. In the pursuit of longer, healthier lives, scientists are studying the lowly roundworm Caenorhabditis (C.) elegans to better understand the molecular mechanisms of human aging. Researchers at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York presented their findings on this subject in the Oct. 24 issue of the jour...NSF awards $4.3 million to Rutgers for Maize Genome Sequencing Project
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. Rutgers is receiving a $4.3 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, part of a $10.2 million, two-year NSF initiative funding two projects that will sequence the maize (corn) genome. The goal is to determine the order and position of the genes on the plant's large and complex chromosomes....... The first of these projects is based at Rutgers, The State Un...Rutgers spinoff success yields $4.3 million payback to university
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. The Rutgers spinoff company, Phytomedics Inc., has signed a new research agreement that will bring almost $4.3 million in grant funding from the company to the university during the next five years. Rutgers will use the funding to stimulate research on botanical therapeutics, which include botanical drugs, nutraceuticals and plant-produced novel proteins. Many bo...Acetaminophen may protect against heart damage according to Rutgers research
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. New research from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, links acetaminophen, the medicine in pain relievers such as Tylenol, to improved heart muscle recovery following ischemic attacks periods of reduced blood flow typical of coronary artery disease.... ... Laboratory findings reported by Professor Gary F. Merrill, Rutgers' department of cell biology and n...Rutgers geneticists discover probable causes of hybrid plant vigor
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. Agricultural breeders have long observed that when plants or animals from different strains are interbred, the offspring tend to be stronger, healthier or generally more fit than either of their parents, although no one knew why this occurred. Now plant geneticists investigating the maize (corn) genome at Rutgers' Waksman Institute of Microbiology have discovered...Rutgers to host 14th annual Human Behavior and Evolution Society meeting
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. Are there differences in the way men and women react to threats to personal safety? Do women think taller men are better providers? Does your walking speed reveal your socioeconomic status? What is the evolution of humor and laughter?...... More than 400 leading scholars and students will explore these and other questions at the 14th annual Human Behavior and...Rutgers scientists create high-protein corn with Third World potential
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. Rutgers geneticists have devised a new approach to create a more nutritious corn without employing the controversial biotechnology used in genetically modified foods. Instead of adding foreign DNA to the corn, the researchers increased the plant's ability to produce more of its own naturally occurring protein by adjusting the genetic signals that control the proce...Food & Agriculture Biosecurity Initiative announced by incoming executive dean at Rutgers
For most Americans, fear of food centers on fat content or calories. Rarely do we worry about food safety or for that matter about food shortages. September 11 and anthrax contamination originating from New Jersey post offices threatened this consumer confidence. Intentional introduction of chemical, biological or radiological contaminants or destruction and disruption of the food system are...Rutgers biomedical engineering professor solves golf grip mysteries
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. A Rutgers biomedical engineering professor who invented an "all-at-once" way to measure head, eye and putter movements believes he has found the underlying reason some golfers gravitate toward unconventional hand positions while putting less eye and head movement during certain types of strokes....... George K. Hung (who teaches at Rutgers under the Mandarin phone...Rutgers wins NIH grants to study how tea consumption, diet are tied to cancer
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. - Cancer researcher Chung S. Yang and collaborators at Rutgers University will study tea and its potential to prevent cancer under a $5.7 million, 5-year program project grant from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Another group led by Yang received a planning grant to organize a collaborative program to study diet and canc...Rutgers cell biologist sees new HIV treatment potential in protein discovery
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. Rutgers cell biologist Bonnie L. Firestein is charting a new course in the search for an effective AIDS treatment. Firestein and her colleagues have identified a protein known as HP68 that is critical to the formation of the AIDS virus' outer shell or capsid. Treatments that target this protein could stop HIV production while avoiding the severe side effects foun...Rutgers helping Finns explore arctic microbes
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. A Finnish consortium aided by Rutgers has launched an $800,000, three-year project to mine the diverse, sturdy bacterial strains found in Finland's arctic region.... ... Microbiologists suspect arctic Finland, a cold land of boreal forests and stark mountain tundra with long, dark winters, heavy snowfall and brief summers, may contain frozen biological bounty far m...Rutgers scientists help uncover protein implicated in multiple sclerosis
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. A team of investigators including Rutgers scientists has found an immune system protein normally protective against disease that appears to accelerate progression of multiple sclerosis (MS). ... ...Finding out why the protein, osteopontin, helps rather than hinders MS could ultimately help scientists learn how to block MS, which damages communication among the brai...