A German Cancer Aid study offers people with Li-Fraumeni syndrome new preventive strategies: Researchers at Hannover Medical School (MHH) are investigating for the first time in a new efficacy study whether cancer-free survival can be extended in LFS sufferers with the daily intake of metformin. Li-Fraumeni syndrome (LFS) is a cancer predisposition syndrome (CPS) in which almost all sufferers are diagnosed with cancer at least once in their lives. Many are diagnosed as children or adolescents. In a new efficacy…

Constant ‘churn’ of new cancer cells gives the disease ample room for evolutionary innovation, according to a study in the journal eLIFE. Researchers at the University of Cologne and the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona have discovered that cancer grows uniformly throughout its mass, rather than at the outer edges. The work, published today in the journal eLIFE under the title ‘High-density sampling reveals volume growth in human tumours’, questions decades-old assumptions about how the disease grows and…

Exploring Life at Its Simplest: Lipids, or fats, are essential to life. They form the membranes around cells, protecting them from the outside. In nature, there is an enormous diversity of lipids, with each organism having its own unique combination. But what are the minimum lipid requirements for a cell to survive? A research team at the B CUBE – Center for Molecular Bioengineering at TUD Dresden University of Technology showed that cells can function with just two lipids. They…

Not all plastics are equal — some types and colors are easier to recycle than others. For instance, black foam and black coffee lids, which are often made of polystyrene, usually end up in landfills because color additives lead to ineffective sorting. Now, researchers report in ACS Central Science the ability to leverage one additive in black plastics, with the help of sunlight or white LEDs, to convert black and colored polystyrene waste into reusable starting materials. “Simple, visible light…

Some sequences in the genome cause genes to be switched on or off. Until now, each of these gene switches, or so-called enhancers, was thought to have its own place on the DNA. Different enhancers are therefore separated from each other, even if they control the same gene, and switch it on in different parts of the body. A recent study from the University of Bonn and the LMU Munich challenges this idea. The findings are also important because gene…

…a more efficient, cleaner alternative to existing alternatives. Vehicles fueled by diesel lead to substantial carbon emissions that are challenging to decarbonize. In 2022, diesel fuel use made up about one-fourth of total U.S. transportation carbon dioxide emissions and about one-tenth of total energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Joshua Yuan, the Lucy & Stanley Lopata Professor and chair of the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at…

A new approach for diabetes therapies. Prof. Heiko Lickert is the director of the Institute of Diabetes and Regeneration Research at Helmholtz Munich, professor at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), and member of the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD). Together with his team, they discovered Inceptor in 2021 and described its role as an inhibitor of the insulin signaling pathway. Both Inceptor and the insulin receptor are located on the surface of beta cells, where Inceptor can block…

Working with week-old zebrafish larva, researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and colleagues decoded how the connections formed by a network of neurons in the brainstem guide the fishes’ gaze. The study, published Nov. 22 in Nature Neuroscience, found that a simplified artificial circuit, based on the architecture of this neuronal system, can predict activity in the network. In addition to shedding light on how the brain handles short-term memory, the findings could lead to novel approaches for treating eye movement…

Researchers from the Institute for Neurosciences (IN), a joint center of the Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH) and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), who are also part of the Network Center for Biomedical Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases (CIBERNED) and the Alicante Institute for Health and Biomedical Research (ISABIAL), have developed a cellular fractionation protocol. This method allows for precise analysis of the proteins located in synaptic membranes and in membranes outside the synapses, known as extrasynaptic membranes, in…

…uncover key mechanisms related to cognitive function. Discovery suggests broad implications for giving brain a boost. While it’s well known that sleep enhances cognitive performance, the underlying neural mechanisms, particularly those related to nonrapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, remain largely unexplored. A new study by a team of researchers at Rice University and Houston Methodist’s Center for Neural Systems Restoration and Weill Cornell Medical College, coordinated by Rice’s Valentin Dragoi, has nonetheless uncovered a key mechanism by which sleep enhances…

Protein design aims to create customized antibodies for therapies, biosensors for diagnostics, or enzymes for chemical reactions. An international research team has now developed a method for designing large new proteins better than before and producing them with the desired properties in the laboratory. Their approach involves a new way of using the capabilities of the AI-based software Alphafold2, for which the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded in 2024. Whether as building blocks, transport systems, enzymes, or antibodies, proteins…

Borrowing principles from pest management, ASU researchers aim to extend survival rate, quality of life for cancer patients. Just as crop-devouring insects evolve to resist pesticides, cancer cells can increase their lethality by developing resistance to treatment. In fact, most deaths from cancer are caused by the evolution of therapeutic resistance. In a new review, Arizona State University researchers, working with colleagues around the world, explore how established agricultural pest management strategies could be adapted to address cancer therapy. The…

A research team from the University of Freiburg and the Medical Center- University of Freiburg has developed a novel biomimetic speaking valve technology that could significantly increase the safety of tracheostomised patients. The challenge: if conventional speaking valves are used improperly, dangerous overpressure can occur, which can cause serious complications and even death. In a collaboration between the Freiburg Botanical Garden, the Medical Center – University of Freiburg and the Cluster of Excellence livMatS of the University of Freiburg, researchers…

ISTA scientists take a deep look into memory processing inside the hippocampus. Resembling a seahorse, as its name implies from the Greek words “hippos” (horse) and “kampus” (sea monster), the hippocampus is a brain region crucial for memory formation. But until recently, scientists have not been able to link memory formation to distinct molecular signals. Now, a team of scientists from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) and the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences likely opened this…

Scientists at the Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN) in Dummerstorf have decoded the genome of the African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) in collaboration with international partners. The study (Nguinkal JA et al., Sci Data 11, 2024), which was recently published in the journal Scientific Data, represents a milestone for genetic research on the animal and aquaculture husbandry. The genome of the African catfish decoded The African catfish is one of the most important species in global fish production. It…

New research from the Kind Group at the Hubrecht Institute sheds light on how cells repair damaged DNA. For the first time, the team has mapped the activity of repair proteins in individual human cells. The study demonstrates how these proteins collaborate in so-called “hubs” to repair DNA damage. This knowledge offers opportunities to improve cancer therapies and other treatments where DNA repair is essential. The researchers published their findings in Nature Communications on November 21. DNA is the molecule…