UNC scientists identify sticky protein in sickle cell red blood cells
...eveals why red blood cells from people with sickle cell disease are stickier than healthy red cells, point...ing the way to potential new treatments for sickle cell disease.The study shows that a protein found on the surface of immature red blood cells, or reticulo...Technique for genetically modifying blood stem cells brings cure for blood diseases closer
...and we need to get only one copy of it into a stem cell to produce significant amounts of fetal hemoglobin," Persons said. The present study showed that the control elements significantly improved the ability of a single gamma-globin gene to produce this protein in HSCs. The HSCs t...Highlights of American Anthropological Assoc. meeting
...th tales about Maine lobsters, Tokyo sushi and the cell phone. Friday 1 p.m. Author of From Racism to Genocide: Anthropology in the Third Reich. The untold tale of twins, their fate and the bitter role of anthropologists. Saturday, 10.30 a.m. Authors of Fat, The Anthropo...Touching research: How white blood cells navigate
...e forces at work are daunting, partly because each cell has a complex surface topography, with dozens of small molecular projections that give it a ruffled appearance, kind of like a tiny raisin. Those projections serve as signals that help determine where white blood cells will exit the bloodstream and f...Channel protein converts vibrations to electrical signal
... microseconds of this motion, channels in the hair cell open and allow ions to enter the first step in se...the search for a molecule that might form the hair cell channel, the researchers turned to a family of ion channels known as TRPs, or transient receptor pot...Gladstone researchers resolve key Huntington's disease mystery in Nature cover story
...'t allow researchers to track changes in any given cell over time. Beyond slowness, a fundamental problem ...dies lock up mutant huntingtin in other parts of a cell and keep it from interfering with the rest of the neuron in ways that can trigger cell death. These ...Study using robotic microscope shows how mutant Huntington's protein affects neurons
...from people with Huntington's disease (HD) prevent cell death. The finding helps to resolve a longstandin... lowered their overall risk of death. The rate of cell death was higher in neurons with larger gene mutations, but the death rate for each set of cells rem...Anti-cholesterol drug treats Alzheimer's disease in mice
...CAT), converts into a form of cholesterol that the cell stores in droplets. When CP-113,818 is administered, it plugs into the "active site" of ACAT, jamming its operation and preventing the enzyme from processing cholesterol. Cholesterol is required in the production of the short protein called A peptide...Flies have morning and evening clocks
...ues used genetic techniques to selectively deliver cell death genes to ablate specific groups of neurons. They then observed how these genetic deletions affected the flies' activity. The experiments revealed that the PDF-expressing ventral lateral neurons govern the morning activity peak; while another gr...Research into the sense of touch in worms wins Eppendorf/Science Prize
... project, completed in 2001, focused on asymmetric cell division and the generation of cell diversity in the embryonic murine cerebral cortex. She is now a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Sally Tem...Time-lapse movies show brain cells move like a two-stroke engine
...in a two-part "step" led by a structure within the cell called the centrosome. Once the centrosome, the ke...r the cell's internal skeleton, moves forward, the cell nucleus follows. The Rockefeller scientists produced time-lapse movies that show nerve cell migratio...Muscling in on a deadly cancer
... a gene that acts as a tumor suppressor to control cell division, which runs amok in cancer. Researchers b...rp53 (or p53) and Ink4a/ARF that normally control cell division. Recent experiments show nearly all the mice develop muscle cancer when t...Ancient Chinese folk remedy packs anti-cancer punch
...call "free radicals." The free radicals attack the cell membrane and other molecules, breaking it apart an... "We call it a Trojan horse because a cancer cell recognizes transferrin as a natural, harmless protein and picks up the tagged compound without knowi......ts. FGFs are a family of molecules that stimulate cell growth in many areas of the body, and are involved...y and may mediate the cross-talk between different cell types in the brain. As a result, they can be seen as mediators of the property that neuroscientists...Researchers find protein that makes long-term memory possible
...euron generates an electrical impulse, causing the cell to release its neurotransmitters. The neurotransmitters, in turn, bind to special sites, or receptors, on nearby neurons. The recipient neurons then generate their own electrical impulses and release their own neurotransmitters, triggering the proc...Study identifies target for preventing sexual transmission of HIV
...ission, called mucosal sites. HIV can use certain cell surface molecules such as CCR5 to gain entry into ...RANTES can bind to CCR5 and by binding, forces the cell to internalize the CCR5 receptor so HIV cannot bind to it. We developed an altered RANTES molecule, ...Scientists explain how morphogens work
...s, which is the incorporation of substances into a cell by pinching off of the plasma membrane. The Li... morphogen molecules are mainly distributed on the cell surface, which suggests that Dpp morphogen moves by an extracellular diffusion mechanism. To...Sniffing out the culprits of dust allergies
...r 1 p was implicated in the cleavage of the CD4+ T cell receptor CD25--the Der 1 p inhibitor has a dose-dependent ability to protect the receptor on whole cells. This study demonstrates the utility of this new approach for quickly identifying active proteases involved in allergic responses or other diseas...Intracellular protein localization involved in new tumor progression pathway
...estigated the where survivin is located within the cell to see whether the cellular location is directly i...urvivin that is released into the cytoplasm when a cell receives signals to undergo cell death. Once in the cytoplasm, survivin inhibits enzymes called casp......in had an antiproliferative effect on human cancer cell lines and on tumor growth in a mouse model. They ... selectively inhibit growth in several human tumor cell lines. They further demonstrate that human tumor growth in mice can be suppressed by these Pdf inhi...