Scientists have identified a key regulatory mechanism in the TGF-ß pathway. This discovery by Dr. Kai Lin and colleagues at UMASS Medical School and the University of Mississippi Medical Center helps further our understanding of how this important signaling pathway functions in a variety of cellular processes, including cancer formation and embryonic development.

The work is published in the August 1 issue of Genes & Development.

The TGF-ß pathway is an intracellular signaling pat

While extreme obesity has been associated with heart failure, until now, data have been limited regarding the influence of overweight and lesser degrees of obesity on the risk of this disease. According to a new study supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), excess body weight is strongly and independently associated with an increased risk of heart failure. This risk, which increases continuously with increasing degrees of body weight, is 34 percent higher for overweight in

Rockefeller researchers discover unexpected trigger

Often in science a novel set of experiments comes along that forces researchers to abandon old models in exchange for new ones that better fit their observations. This is the case in a new Nature report by Rockefeller University researchers, which finds that past models of cellular division in the simple yeast organism were focused on the wrong protein.

Until now, scientists thought that yeast cells began dividing into two

A crucial piece of the puzzle into how the eye becomes wired to the brain has been revealed by scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., and UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

In findings published in today’s edition of Neuron, the researchers report that a certain class of Eph receptors and ephrin ligands – proteins that cause cells to either repel or attract each other – control how nerve connections from the developing eye form maps that pre

A new gene shown to be essential for pollen production in flowering plants has been discovered by scientists at Penn State University. A paper describing the team’s discovery of the gene, whose activity they found is necessary for the formation of cells required for pollen production, will be published in the 1 August 2002 issue of the journal Genes and Development.

“This research is the first indication that a specific kind of protein known as a receptor-linked protein kinase, which resul

Researchers from the State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse and the University of California, San Francisco, have found evidence that methadone treatment programs are effective platforms for providing tuberculosis (TB) preventive therapy to substance abusers. In the study, methadone treatment combined with directly observed TB preventive therapy improved adherence to and completion of TB preventive therapy by injection drug abusers.

Previous research has shown t