Body

The reproduction process is essentially the same in humans, animals and most plants. Both female and male organisms are required to contribute to the phenomenon.

Researchers led by Carnegie Mellon University's Molecular and Biosensor Imaging Center (MBIC) Director Marcel Bruchez have re-engineered a fluorescent probe into a powerful optogenetic photosensitizer that can be used to manipulate cells.

The technology could help researchers better understand the role certain cells and proteins play in everyday function and disease, and could possibly be used as a targeted therapy for cancer and other diseases. Their findings were published online today by Nature Methods.

For the first time ever, scientists studying a mouse model of diabetes have implanted encapsulated insulin-producing cells derived from human stem cells and maintained long-term control of blood sugar -- without administering immunosuppressant drugs.

The results of the multi-institutional effort are published in Nature Medicine.

LA JOLLA, CA - January 25, 2016 - Meet a microscopic gymnast.

A new study led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and the University of California (UC), Berkeley shows how a crucial molecular enzyme starts in a tucked-in somersault position and flips out when it encounters the right target.

The new findings, published recently in the journal eLife, give scientists a clearer picture of the process through which cells eliminate proteins that promote diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's.

DALLAS, Monday, January 25, 2016 --A woman's heart attack may have different underlying causes, symptoms and outcomes compared to men, and differences in risk factors and outcomes are further pronounced in black and Hispanic women, according to a scientific statement published in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation.

WOODS HOLE, Mass. Bacteria usually live in mixed communities with many different kinds of bacteria present. But it's been largely unknown how these communities are organized, because the technology didn't exist to see how they are structured in space.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. --An international team of researchers has identified and named a new species of dinosaur that is the most complete, primitive duck-billed dinosaur to ever be discovered in the eastern United States.

This new discovery also shows that duck-billed dinosaurs originated in the eastern United States, what was then broadly referred to as Appalachia, before dispersing to other parts of the world. The research team outlined its findings in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

A collaborative team from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Vanderbilt University, The Scripps Research Institute and Integral Molecular Inc. have learned that antibodies in the blood of people who have survived a strain of the Ebola virus can kill various types of Ebola. The study is currently available in Cell.

The findings are significant because it helps researchers further understand the immune response to a virus such as Ebola and could lead to treatments for Ebola as well as other related viruses.

New research finds that the most commonly used test for tuberculosis fails to accurately diagnose TB in up to 50 percent of pregnant women who are HIV+. The research published early online in the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine is believed to be the first study to compare the accuracy of two TB tests - the Quantiferon Gold In Tube® blood test and the more commonly used TST or tuberculin skin test--in this population.

Over-hunting of large mammals in tropical forests could make climate change worse according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA).

Tropical forests worldwide store more than 460 billion tonnes of carbon. The Amazon is the largest and most species-rich tropical forest on Earth.

Researchers studied the large-scale impact of wildlife extinctions induced by over-hunting on carbon storage right across the Amazon.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists have identified a molecular property of the hemagglutinin protein that contributed to the emergence of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic influenza virus. The findings may help officials recognize and control flu viruses that pose the greatest risk to humans. The study appears today in the online, early edition of the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Hemagglutinin is carried on the surface of the flu virus. The virus needs the protein for binding to and infecting host cells.

A team of scientists has uncovered greater intricacy in protein signaling than was previously understood, shedding new light on the nature of genetic production.

Christine Vogel, an assistant professor in New York University's Department of Biology and one of the study's senior authors, explains that "to make a protein, we need to make a messenger RNA molecule from the gene encoded in the DNA, and then, in a second process, make proteins from these RNA molecules. Both processes are highly regulated and coupled."

Evolution likes to borrow. It can take an already-successful biological structure and alter it until it serves a new function. Two independent groups studying the proteins that organize gut microvilli now suspect that this may have been the case in the development of inner ear hair cell stereocilia. While functionally very different, the protein complexes that organize microvilli and stereocilia have striking parallels. Both papers appear January 25 in Developmental Cell.

Researchers have uncovered previously unappreciated means by which epigenetic information contained in the egg influences the development of the placenta during pregnancy. The research, which was performed in mice, indicates that a mother's health, even before conception, may influence the health of her fetus, and opens questions on how a mother's age may influence placental development.

A pilot study finds that using smartphone reminders to prompt people to get moving may help reduce sedentary behavior. The study was supported by the American Cancer Society, with technical expertise provided by the e-Health Technology Program at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. The study appears in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.