Life Sciences and Chemistry

Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine have found a new wrinkle in the developmental biology dogma that cell differentiation occurs irreversibly as stem cells give rise to increasingly specialized types of offspring cells. The researchers have shown that certain mouse cells retain an ability to oscillate between very distinct blood cell types — B-cells and macrophages — long after what has been commonly regarded as the point of no return.

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’Quantum dots’ may allow researchers to track proteins and cells in their natural environments

Imagine if molecular and cell biologists could watch proteins and cells at work in their natural habitat in the same way that wildlife biologists observe animals in the wild. They’d sit back and witness first hand their microscopic subjects’ daily routines, interactions and movements, and the places they prefer to be.

This fantasy is rapidly becoming a reality t

Scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have identified a new and surprising mechanism by which a class of enzymes responsible for the breakdown of proteins operates.

The process of degrading proteins no longer needed by cells is essential in the normal growth, development and regulation of cells, and the study’s findings have implications for understanding diseases like Parkinson’s and several forms of cancer.

“Many diseases involve the inappropriate accumu

Researchers have discovered the first genetic component of a biochemical pathway in the brain that governs the indelible imprinting of fear-related experiences in memory.

The gene identified by researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Columbia University encodes a protein that inhibits the action of the fear-learning circuitry in the brain. Understanding how this protein quells fear may lead to the design of new drugs to treat depression, panic and generalized anxiety di

With 46 chromosomes and six feet of DNA to copy every time most human cells divide, it’s not surprising that gaps or breaks sometimes show up in the finished product – especially when the cell is under stress or dividing rapidly, as in cancer.

But what is surprising – according to Thomas Glover, Ph.D., a geneticist at the University of Michigan Medical School – is that the breaks don’t always occur at random. They happen at a few specific locations on chromosomes, when cells are u

As mammals, our internal (circadian) clock is regulated by the patterns of light and dark we experience. But how that information is transmitted from the eye to the biological clock in the brain has been a matter of scientific debate. Scientists had suspected that a molecule called melanopsin, which is found in the retina, plays an important role.

Now researchers at Stanford University and Deltagen Inc. have confirmed that melanopsin does indeed transmit light information from the eye to th