Joe Sodroski wins the 2006 Retrovirology Prize
...e also identified the Rev gene, which controls the switch from early to late stages in the replication cycle of HIV. In collaboration with others, Sodroski produced the first X-ray structure of the external glycoprotein gp120. With Norman Letvin, Sodroski developed the simian-human immunodeficiency virus (S...NC State scientists characterize protein linked to neurodegenerative diseases
...om areas that have too much or serves as an on/off switch for further chemical reactions. It is known for its flexibility; it is found in the kidneys, pancreas, ocular nerve and in abundant quantities in the brain. Recent studies show, Cavanagh says, that it acts as a bodyguard in the brain, binding to and ...When biology gets 'Quirky,' scientists turn to math
...e, and then suddenly not work well at all, as if a switch had been flipped. For researchers who are trying t... abruptly returned to 95 percent. "It was like a switch had been flipped, and the trigger was an increase or decrease of only 0.02 milliliters of reactant s...Hopkins researchers develop new tool to watch real-time chemical activity in cells
...hemicals tested, three caused cells to turn on the switch and two others caused cells to turn off the switch. The 160 chemicals tested are from the Johns Hopkins Clinical Compound Library, a collection of about 3,300 chemicals. Most of them are drugs already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administrat...ACS Weekly PressPac -- July 12, 2006
...soline prices have sharpened public awareness that switch grass, cornstalks and other plant matter is the most economical raw material for making ethanol, which can be mixed with gasoline. Now a study scheduled for the July 19 issue of ACS Energy & Fuels reports that cornstalks can be an alternative source ...Effects of nutrition on learning
... as did the degree of accelerated growth after the switch to a normal diet. As it happened, birds with the most stunted growth (relative to their control siblings) and those with the most accelerated growth (after switching diets) fell into different groups, allowing the researchers to distinguish cognitive...Gene screen for breast cancer better than pathologist's 'eye'
...tical regions of DNA. The tags attach to the "on" switch of genes which starts the message-manufacturing pr...normal levels of methylation, which turns the gene switch off halting the assembly line of critical proteins found in normal cells. The Hopkins test, called...Controlling robots that search for Mars life
...ddenly rises, or the spacecraft will automatically switch into a diagnostic 'safe mode' if anything goes wrong. But for the most part, lengthy instructions still must be pre-programmed by mission controllers on Earth and sent up for later, step-by-step, execution. And ESA controllers have never before oper...Corals switch skeleton material as seawater changes
...the same location. The team showed that corals can switch from using aragonite to another mineral, calcite, in making the calcium carbonate. They make that switch in response to decreases in the ratio of magnesium to calcium in seawater, Ries said. That ratio has...Attacking cancer's sweet tooth is effective strategy against tumors
...osed that some cancer cells evolved the ability to switch over to an ancient, oxygen-free route, the glycoly...ves a long-standing debate about how and why cells switch to glycolysis in the first place. Warburg speculated that cancer cells change over to glycolysis, wh...Parkinson's disease mechanism discovered
...However, Lindquist's team developed a technique to switch on overproduction of alpha-synuclein in yeast, so they could determine which abnormalities arose earliest in the pathological process. Those experiments by Cooper revealed that an important early defect affected the machinery that transports proteins...News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
...e authors postulate that CORT acts as an amygdalar switch that favors the emergence of olfactory fear conditioning. 3. Kiss1 Neurons and Neuroendocrine Regulation Jeremy T. Smith, Simina M. Popa, Donald K. Clifton, Gloria E. Hoffman, and Robert A. Steiner Mammalian ovulation is the culmination of a comp...Science researchers catch an early bird
...thurans rose to dominance over opposite birds. The switch may have had something to do with environmental changes, "but it's hard to answer this question just based on bird fossils. We need more information on the paleoclimate," You says. The Gansus fossils are preserved in rocks that were deposited in an a...Researchers attack tumor cells by exploiting dependency on sugar metabolism
...hosphorylation. In contrast, cancer cells commonly switch to what is known as a "glycolytic phenotype," producing ATP through a process that can occur in the absence of oxygen and involves conversion of glucose to lactate. Scientists believe that the glycolytic phenotype enables rapidly proliferating tumor ...Scientists tie several cancers to common 'oncogene engine'
...s that are regulated by MITF act like a stuck "on" switch for cell proliferation. Last year, investigators based at Dana-Farber (including Fisher and his colleagues) reported that the MITF gene is amplified in 20 percent of melanoma tumors. In addition, Fisher and Scott R. Granter, MD, of Children's Hospita...Salk scientists get to the root of plant cell fate
...ne's name. Long asked how mutations in TOPLESS can switch a plant cell's fate from shoot to root, hoping to discover how cells at the "basal" end of plant embryos become roots, while cells at the top or "apical" end become shoots that give rise to leaves, branches, and flowers. "We want to know how a plant ...Striking the right balance between excitation and inhibition
...iled description of how Notch signaling provides a switch that controls the choice between two different neuronal fates, we can now look and see if it is used in similar ways elsewhere to make different kinds of neurons." The neurons in the dorsal spinal cord analyzed by the Goulding lab form a relay statio...For Stanford scientists, RNAi gene therapy takes two steps forward, one step back
...Ai gene therapy might induce an immune reaction or switch off the wrong gene or genes. As these concerns faded, things began looking up for RNAi with three RNAi therapies now in human trials - two for macular degeneration and one for a type of pneumonia. However, these studies involve simply infusing the RN...Survival of the selfless - scientists find cheats don't always prosper
...that the ideal organism type would be one that can switch between selfish and efficient metabolism. Dr MacLean adds: "While microbes are obviously not capable of rational thought, they can change their behaviour rapidly in response to simple environmental cues. The possibility that one type could become bot...How ancient whales lost their legs, got sleek and conquered the oceans
...A gene called Hand2, which normally functions as a switch to turn on Sonic hedgehog, was shown to be inactive in the hind limb buds of dolphins. Without it, limb development grinds to a halt. "By integrating data from fossils with developmental data from embryonic dolphins, we were able to trace these genet...