General

The DNA-cutting proteins central to CRISPR-Cas9 and related gene-editing tools originally came from bacteria, but a newfound variety of Cas proteins apparently evolved in viruses that infect bacteria. The new Cas proteins were found in the largest known bacteria-infecting viruses, called bacteriophages, and are the most compact working Cas variants […]

With the growing interest in the accumulation of senescent cells as an important cause of aging, and more funding flowing into this part of the field, researchers are uncovering numerous direct links between cellular senescence and age-related conditions. Senescent cells cause harm to tissues via their inflammatory secretions, the senescence-associated […]

The emergency rooms in Barcelona were collapsing under the pressure. Hundreds of patients were arriving in desperate need as they struggled to breathe, while intensive care units struggled to cope with the sudden influx of respiratory problems. Epidemiologists scrambled to trace the source of the outbreak. This epidemic in the […]

What can the common fruit fly teach us about cancer? “Over the last few decades, the fruit fly – Drosophila melanogaster – has become a successful model for studying human cancers,” said Wu-Min Deng, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and the Gerald and Flora Jo Mansfield Piltz Professor of […]

Peter Reddien's lab at the Whitehead Institute takes a step forward in understanding how neural circuits could be regenerated in adults. If anything happens to the eyes of the tiny, freshwater-dwelling planarian Schmidtea mediterranea, they can grow them back within just a few days. How they do this is a scientific conundrum […]

Stem cell activity declines with age throughout the body. In some cases this is because stem cells become less active in response to changes in the signaling environment. In other cases, the cells are damaged or the populations greatly reduced. The consequence of this decline is that fewer daughter somatic […]

Researchers at the University of East Anglia and the University of Manchester have made an important breakthrough that could lead to ‘kinder’ treatments for children with bone cancer, and save lives. Current treatment is grueling, with outdated chemotherapy cocktails and limb amputation. But despite all of this, the five-year survival […]

In a study published in PNAS, researchers from Karolinska Institutet, the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Nagoya University and Technische Universität Braunschweig show an undiscovered heterogeneity of adult zebrafish Purkinje cells, revealing the existence of anatomically and functionally distinct cell types. The cerebellum, sometimes referred to as the “tree of […]

Brain cancers have long been thought of as being resistant to treatments because of the presence of multiple types of cancer cells within each tumor. A new study uncovers a cancer cell hierarchy that originates from a single cancer cell type, which can be targeted to slow cancer growth. The […]

A new study from McGill University shows that increases in the concentrations of blood sodium can have an influence on the biological clock of mice, opening new research avenues for potentially treating the negative effects associated with long-distance travel or shift work. The findings, published in Nature by former McGill Ph.D. student […]

Research has found that those living with HIV have a higher risk for certain kinds of cancers—such as lung cancer. Now, with a new five-year, $3.7 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), researchers from Case Western Reserve University hope to find out why. Ge Jin, professor at the […]

A University of Michigan-led study is shedding new light on the way pancreatic cancer cells turn nearby connective tissue cells into co-conspirators in their deadly growth. The findings, which appear in Nature Metabolism, also suggest a new potential strategy against pancreatic cancer by identifying critical components of metabolic cross-talk between cells that might be […]

If you’ve ever been diagnosed with high cholesterol, also known as hyperlipidemia, your doctor has probably prescribed a statin. And while statins have been the go-to drug for managing cholesterol for nearly 25 years, there’s a new weapon in the fight. Recent studies suggest that adding a new class of medications — either […]

Researchers at Harvard Medical School, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have uncovered a genetic mechanism that helps drive clonal hematopoiesis, a common age-related condition known to increase the risk of blood cancer and cardiovascular disease. In clonal hematopoiesis or CH, some blood stem […]

A study from the National Institutes of Health showed that neurofilament light chain (NfL) delivered a superior diagnostic and prognostic performance as a blood biomarker for mild, moderate, and severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) when compared to blood proteins glial fibrillary acidic protein, tau, and ubiquitin c-terminal hydrolase-L1. The research […]

The disposibility theory of aging is one of numerous evolutionary theories of aging that seek to explain why aging exists and is near universal across species. In this case, aging is viewed as the inevitable result of trade-offs between resources allocated to reproduction versus resources allocated to tissue maintenance. Like […]

One of the most common misconceptions is that one human year equals seven dog years in terms of aging. However, this equivalency is misleading and has been consistently dismissed by veterinarians. A recent study, published in the journal Cell Systems(link is external), lays out a new framework for comparing dog-to-human aging. In […]

Research by the universities of Liverpool and Oxford reveals new insight into age-related fertility decline in male fruit flies. Infertility is one of the most striking effects of ageing. The impact of ageing on females’ fertility is more severe and much better understood, but it also affects males. Male reproductive […]

First study of its kind shows formula-fed babies’ gut microbiomes more like those of breastfed babies when they live near natural environments. Living close to natural green space can mitigate some of the changes in infant gut bacteria associated with formula feeding, according to new research published in the journal Environment International. “Not […]

Volunteers can add data with a five-minute online session. Do you get nervous when you can’t think of a word? Chances are it’s a momentary lapse, but problems with language are one of the symptoms that can indicate a neurodegenerative disorder like Alzheimer’s disease. Unfortunately, diagnosing these conditions requires scoring […]

A new study from Penn Medicine lends further evidence that the social behaviors tied to autism spectrum disorders (ASD) emerge from the abnormal function of sensory neurons outside the brain. It’s an important finding, published in the journal Cell Reports because peripheral sensory systems—which determine how we perceive the environment around us […]

To make new memories, our brain cells first must find one another. Small protrusions that bud out from the ends of neurons’ long, branching tentacles dock neurons together so they can talk. These ports of cellular chatter – called synapses, and found in the trillions throughout the brain – allow […]

A new model of the causes of breast cancer, created by a team led by researchers at UC San Francisco, Genentech and Stanford University, is designed to capture the complex interrelationships between dozens of primary and secondary breast cancer causes and stimulate further research. Breast cancer is the most common […]

Black men in the United States are known to suffer disproportionately from prostate cancer, but few studies have investigated whether genetic differences in prostate tumors could have anything to do with these health disparities. Now, in the largest study of its kind to date, researchers from Boston University School of […]

A little-studied liver protein may be responsible for the well-known benefits of exercise on the aging brain, according to a new study in mice by scientists in the UC San Francisco Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research. The findings could lead to new therapies to […]

UW microbiologists discovered a bacterial toxin that, when engineered, is a key part of a gene editor that can make single-base changes in human mitochondria. The genome in mitochondria — the cell’s energy-producing organelles — is involved in disease and key biological functions, and the ability to precisely alter this […]

Changes in a few small molecules involved in a cell’s metabolism seem to indicate whether a restricted “life extension” diet will actually extend, shorten, or have no effect on lifespan, a study of fruit flies has found. The findings suggest that analyzing the level of small molecules in cells, an […]

A research team from Yale and Baylor College of Medicine has completed the largest single-cell analysis to date of lungs affected by Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF), revealing how cells change in response to the disease and identifying previously unknown cell types. The findings, published in the issue of Science Advances, deepen […]

There are innumerable studies showing small gains in mouse life span. Most cannot be reproduced, particularly the older ones, those that took place before it was common knowledge in the research community that one has to very aggressively control for accidental calorie restriction. If an intervention makes mice eat less, […]

In recent years academic interest has grown in the study of the gut microbiome. Researchers are making inroads into understanding the considerable influence of these microbial populations over the progression of health and aging. The gut microbiome may be as influential as physical activity in these matters. The balance of […]