Crowding stem cells' personal space directs their future
...mal) stem cells forced to be spherical efficiently transform into precursors to fat cells, while those allowed to stretch and flatten move closer to becoming bone cells. These stem cells can naturally become fat cells, cartilage, bone cells, or smooth, cardiac or skeletal muscle. "The types of cells that com...Received truth turned on end in cancer research
...he fusion proteins prompt formerly normal cells to transform into cancer cells. On the other hand, solid tumors, which make up the majority of all cancer cases, have been seen as developing as a result of certain cells losing the inhibiting mechanism in the form of so-called tumor suppressor genes that keep t...Damania of UNC receives Elion cancer research award
...1. Her research aims to decipher how this gene can transform cells to become malignancies. Damania has already performed groundbreaking work related to KSHV and has published more than 20 journal articles on the subject. Damania earned her doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania in 1998. She joined the UN...Scientists develop new cloning technique that dramatically shortens the search for genes
...ls. However, there are soil-dwelling bacteria that transform atmospheric nitrogen into a compound that plants can absorb in their roots and then convert into proteins a process called nitrogen fixation. Animals, in turn, get their primary source of nitrogen from plants, which makes bacterial nitrogen fixation...Researchers find a protein that controls cell growth
...ntrolling a web of molecular interactions that can transform normal cells into cancerous ones. The finding may provide new possibilities for devising cancer therapies that target this protein. "A tumor cell lacks the ability to limit its own growth," says Michele Pagano, M.D., Associate Professor of Patho......ave used the method to detect specific events that transform the architecture of chromosomes from a transcriptionally silent state to an actively transcribed state. These findings have revealed fundamental information about how genes are switched on and off in the context of living cells. The method is likely ...Researchers discover new family of Atlantic corals in groundbreaking study
...assifications in that ocean--in a study that could transform the way corals are viewed and classified throughout the world. Researchers from the United States, Brazil, Taiwan and Japan revealed significant flaws in the widely accepted taxonomy of Pacific and Atlantic corals. In the Feb. 26 issue of the journal...DFG establishes 14 new research units
...eria have receptors that respond to blue light and transform the light signals into chemical processes. How this signal processing functions has not yet been adequately clarified and is now to be examined by the Research Unit entitled "Blue Light-sensitive Photoreceptors". Humanities and Social Sciences A ne...Federal grant supports advances in infant heart disease at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
..." said Dr. Levy. "The new SCCOR grant will seek to transform our fundamental hypothesis into a translational approach that yields practical treatments." Congenital heart abnormalities, which occur in approximately one in 100 live births, are the largest contributor to deaths from birth defects. Although advan...Pacific Northwest National Lab unveils most complete human blood-plasma proteome map to date
...orm of mass spectrometry for this purpose: Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FTICR). PNNL's instrumentation can ransack a sample for proteins that defy detection by other means, having recently pushed the detection limits to about 10 zeptomoles, or on the order of 6,000 individual molecules, "allowing...UT Southwestern researchers find leptin turns fat-storing cells into fat-burning cells
...ell. If we could disable or bypass this system and transform fat (storing) cells into fat-burning cells, then we may be a step closer to solving the obesity epidemic."...Researchers seek to clone 'mad cow disease' resistant cattle strain
...ources interact with normal prions in the body and transform them into the lethal agents that eventually create the "Swiss cheese-like" lesions in the brain that cause the devastating neurological symptoms of the disease. The pathogenic prions that are ingested by cattle in contaminated feed do not seem to be ...Purdue biologists expose the inner workings of viral machine
...e-stranded RNA instructions that order the cell to transform itself into a virus-producing factory." These single strands of RNA are assembled within the virus in part by a protein molecule called lambda-3 that operates somewhat like a printing press. The raw materials are drawn like blank paper through a hole...Mercury in ocean fish may come from natural sources, not pollution
...ern, but when mercury enters water, microorganisms transform it to a highly toxic form methylmercury that builds up in fish. Unfortunately, scientists are not yet able to measure methylmercury in ocean surface waters, so Morel and his coworkers approached the problem from a different angle. They measured...Genetics mutations resulting in delayed puberty are focus of MCG study
...s that forestall the sex steroids or hormones that transform children into reproductive adults. Boys usually begin puberty by age 10 or 11 and girls age 8 or 9, when the hypothalamus in the brain begins releasing gonadotropin releasing hormone, which stimulates the pituitary gland to make follicle stimulating ...Department of Energy 20-Year science facility plan announced
...ies cover the critical areas where discoveries can transform our energy future, boost economic productivity, transform our understanding of biology, and provide revolutionary new tools to deal with disease. "They can ma...Researchers grow breast cancer tissue from transplanted mammary stem cells
..., the new field of cancer stem cell research could transform cancer treatment. "It will be very interesting to learn more about the properties of these cancer stem cells," he said. "How do they evade the body's natural defenses against cancer, and to what extent do they evade conventional cancer therapies? Can...U of Minnesota receives NSF grant to sequence bacterial genome
...rade herbicides and other organic compounds and to transform toxic heavy metals into nontoxic forms. For example, it can transform mercury salts to neutral metal. The researchers hope the information they gain from genomics will gi...$62-million partnership to revolutionize ocean research
...t in NEPTUNE's infrastructure has the potential to transform areas of geological and marine science by radically improving the nature, quality, and quantity of data that can be made available to scientists." Traditional methods of ocean exploration use ships to study the oceans over short periods of time, offe......overed that specific RNA molecules are required to transform prion proteins into their abnormal shapes. They devised a technique to observe how the normal prion protein, called PrPC, efficiently converts into the abnormal infectious protein, PrPSc (scrapie), in a test tube. This biochemical assay enabled the ...