General

Between the ages of two and four, the human brain has an estimated one quadrillion synapses – the electrical connections between neurons. As we age, pruning out extraneous synapses enables existing ones to run more efficiently and is just as important as forming new cellular connections. An imbalance between synapse […]

It’s a fact of life, for lifeforms big and small, that the mind declines with age. Now researchers at UC San Francisco have identified the buildup of one brain chemical as a key culprit behind age-related learning and memory impairments. Tuning levels of this chemical in the worm C. elegans, they […]

It used to be that everyone knew that you are born with all the brain cells you’ll ever have. Then UC San Francisco’s Arturo Alvarez-Buylla, PhD, and other neuroscientists discovered in birds and mice that stem cells in certain parts of the brain do produce new neurons throughout the animal’s life. […]

Experts from the University of Exeter and University College London(UCL) have developed a cognitive test to detect subtle memory deficits years before Alzheimer's disease symptoms develop, set out in a paper published in The Lancet Neurology. The study involved 21 people who carry the mutation for early onset Alzheimer's disease who have not shown any […]

For more than 35 years, scientists have tried to isolate embryonic stem cells in cows without much success. Under the right conditions, embryonic stem cells can grow indefinitely and make any other cell type or tissue, which has huge implications for creating genetically superior cows. In a study published in […]

MIT neuroscientists have uncovered a cellular pathway that allows specific synapses to become stronger during memory formation. The findings provide the first glimpse of the molecular mechanism by which long-term memories are encoded in a region of the hippocampus called CA3. The researchers found that a protein called Npas4, previously […]

As a basic unit of life, the cell is one of the most carefully studied components of all living organisms. Yet details on basic processes such as how cells are shaped have remained a mystery. Working at the intersection of biology and physics, scientists at the University of California San […]

One of the many ways science is going to find new solutions is biomimetics – also called bionik – where you try to imitate or restore nature's amazing properties all the way down to the molecular level. On the nanotechnical scale, researchers are working to produce artificial body cells and […]

“Hairy” nanoparticles made with light-sensitive materials that assemble themselves could one day become “nano-carriers” providing doctors a new way to simultaneously introduce both therapeutic drugs and cancer-fighting heat into tumors. That’s one potential application for a new technology that combines water-repelling yet light-sensitive and water-absorbing materials into polymeric nano-reactors for […]

SC research sheds new light on how a breakdown in the brain’s vascular system predates the accumulation of toxic plaques and tangles in the brain that bring about Alzheimer’s disease. The research suggests an earlier target for preventing dementia and Alzheimer’s. Nearly 50 percent of all dementias, including Alzheimer’s, begins […]

Simple motion inside biological cells, such as the streaming of cytoplasm – the liquid cell interior – is widely believed to be essential for cells and the development of complex organisms. But due to the lack of suitable tools, this intracellular motion could so far not be tested as hypothesized. […]

In 2015, University of California San Diego biologists Ethan Bier and Valentino Gantz developed a breakthrough technology known as “active genetics,” which results in parents transmitting a genetic trait to most of their offspring (instead of 50 percent receiving the trait under standard inheritance). Immediate targets of active genetics included gene-drive systems […]

A discovery by Queensland scientists could be the key to stopping damage caused by uncontrolled inflammation in a range of common diseases including liver disease, Alzheimer’s and gout. University of Queensland researchers have uncovered how an inflammation process automatically switches off in healthy cells, and are now investigating ways to stop […]

In the issue of the journal Nature, researchers describe how two normally mismatched bases in human DNA, guanine and thymine, are able to change shape in order to form an inconspicuous rung on the helical DNA “ladder.” This allows them to survive by avoiding the body’s natural defenses against genetic mutations. […]

Requiring physicians to report patients with dementia to state driver’s licensing authorities is not associated with fewer hospitalizations from motor vehicle crashes. However, in-person license renewal laws and vision testing dramatically cut crashes involving drivers with dementia, according to a new study led by the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of […]

Neuroblastoma forms in the peripheral nervous system and is one of the most common forms of solid cancer in young children. The disease mainly affects babies and young children, and while in some cases the tumours can disappear of their own accord, the majority are aggressive, metastasising cancer tumours that […]

As components of two entirely separate systems in the body, you wouldn’t think ovaries have much in common with bones. But it turns out they do – and their commonalities may help explain why dwarfs such as actors Peter Dinklage and David Rappaport are so short, say UConn Health scientists. […]

Research on HIV over the past decade has led to many promising ideas for vaccines to prevent infection by the AIDS virus, but very few candidate vaccines have been tested in clinical trials. One reason for this is the technical difficulty of manufacturing vaccines based on the envelope proteins of […]

In one of many ways cancer attacks the body, it activates an enzyme that is typically absent in normal, healthy cells. The enzyme is also present in stem cells. When stem cells in our bodies divide, chromosomes within those cells, which carry our genetic material, shorten. If they become too […]

Two independent chemistry breakthroughs have opened a plethora of doors that were previously locked to drug developers and cancer researchers. The discoveries, which involved adding new materials to a previously unstable chemical scaffold and building molecules onto the “pigments of life”, will also offer new possibilities to molecular engineers, materials […]

With new findings, scientists may be poised to break a long impasse in research on Huntington’s disease, a fatal hereditary disorder for which there is currently no treatment. One in 10,000 Americans suffer from the disease, and most begin to show symptoms in middle age as they develop jerky movements—and […]

A new method for monitoring interactions between cells, dubbed LIPSTIC by its creators, is much more than a cosmetic improvement over existing techniques. The breakthrough, led by The Rockefeller University assistant professor Gabriel Victora, offers scientists in a wide range of disciplines a powerful new tool for studying complex biological events […]

UC San Francisco scientists have invented a technique that lets them precisely and reversibly disrupt the action of specific cellular proteins at a microscopic scale by making them split apart when illuminated with blue light. The researchers envision a vast number of applications for the technique in the study of […]

Neurologist and neuroscientist Dena Dubal, MD, PhD, is taking an innovative approach to battling neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Rather than trying to understand the specific mechanisms that cause each disease, she took a step back and asked, “What do all these conditions have in common?” The answer: old […]

Researchers at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute (VTCRI) are partnering with INSIGHTEC to develop noninvasive treatments for brain disorders using Exablate Neuro focused ultrasound and Siemens MR imaging. Through this collaboration, the institute became INSIGHTEC's first nonclinical research site. “There is considerable basic research to be done in order to develop […]

A recent Penn State College of Medicine physician’s study review suggests that shorter courses of radiation are preferable to longer ones for older patients receiving treatment for slow-growing skin cancers. Skin basal and squamous cell cancers are common among patients over 60 years old and are rarely fatal. These cancers — which […]

Growing old is not easy. Your mental health is likely to suffer too just because you have to notice your body fall apart. Furthermore, you become excluded from the normal social life and it can be very painful. However, now scientists say that 85 year old women are actually happier […]

Sleep apnoea is a bizarre condition when people stop breathing when sleeping or their breathing becomes really shallow. It can get so bad that people experience hypoxia, cannot get a good night sleep and sometimes have to get treatment. Now scientists from the University of Queensland found that low levels […]

A team of researchers at the University of Georgia has developed a non-invasive method of delivering drugs directly to cancerous tissue using magnetic forces, a form of treatment that could significantly reduce the toxic side effects of chemotherapy. “We showed that we can deliver anti-cancer drugs exactly in the area […]

University of California, Irvine scientists have created a new chemical tool that can analyze RNA structures within living cells. The technique could facilitate a better grasp of how RNA structures fold and form in cells, as well as help in the design of drugs targeting RNA. Robert Spitale, assistant professor […]