Life Sciences and Chemistry

In the developing brain, nerve cells make connections with one another by extending processes, often over long distances.

The growing tips of these nerve cell processes are guided to their ultimate connection sites by molecular cues in the environment.

A Salk Institute research team has discovered a receptor-protein interaction that guides nerve cells along specific pathways.

John Thomas, professor of molecular neurobiology, working on the fruit fly Drosophila, found tha

The delicate interplay of two chemical signals coaxes stem cells into becoming hair follicles, according to new research by scientists at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at The Rockefeller University.

The research has implications for understanding hair growth and hair-follicle development, and it may also help explain how diverse structures, such as teeth and lungs, are formed or how some forms of skin cancer develop.

In an article published in the March 20, 2003, issue of the

The human body has barriers such as skin and the lining of airways and gut that protect and separate us from the outside world. If these barriers are breached, our survival is threatened. Therefore it is critical that the cells that form these barriers have mechanisms that can instantly repair any injury.

University of Iowa researchers have discovered a surprisingly simple but effective repair system in airway barrier cells. The UI study shows that by placing a messenger molecule on one side

New research shows that a more effective method of genetic engineering could be used to eradicate or manipulate entire, wild populations of harmful species rather than simply small, managed populations, as is currently the case. The research,* to be published in Proceedings B, a learned journal produced by the Royal Society, shows in computer simulations how a single, ’selfish’ gene could be used to infect the host and eliminate ’problem’ genes, for example a gene allowing mosquit

Discovery points to one possible path to novel drug development for cancer, AIDS, some inflammation

Using a new approach, Mayo Clinic researchers have successfully “taught” an RNA molecule inside a living cell to work as a decoy to divert the actions of the protein NF-kappaB, which scientists believe promotes disease development. The findings are published in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Although it also plays helpful roles in the bod

Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered that primitive human embryonic stem (ES) cells, temperamental in the lab, can be grown with the help of special cells from bone marrow, offering an easily obtained and well-studied source of human cells to nurture the human ES cells as they divide.

First announced in 1998, human embryonic stem cells are usually grown in the lab on a “feeder layer” of mouse cells. Feeder cells send as yet unknown signals to the primitive human ES cells, preventing the