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Molecular biologists and bioengineers at the University of California San Diego have unraveled key mechanisms behind the mysteries of aging. They isolated two distinct paths that cells travel during aging and engineered a new way to genetically program these processes to extend lifespan. The research was described in the journal […]

A unique nanoparticle to deliver a localized cancer treatment inhibits tumor growth in mice, according to a team of Penn State researchers. The nanoparticles, developed by Daniel Hayes, associate professor of biomedical engineering, have a specific chemistry that allows a microRNA (miRNA) to attach to it. A miRNA is a […]

It might seem as though humans have little in common with the lowly yeast cell. Humans have hair, skin, muscles, and bones, among other attributes. Yeast has, well, none of those things. But besides their obvious differences, yeast, and humans, and much of life for that matter, have a great […]

Ultrasound imaging, as most people are familiar with it, is used for taking pictures of a fetus while it is still inside the womb, but it has other medical purposes, such as diagnosing diseases of organs and tissues. For years, Caltech's Mikhail Shapiro has been working to extend ultrasound imaging into […]

New study sheds light on how nutrient-starved cells recycle internal components. The idea of the cell as a city is a common introduction to biology, conjuring depictions of the cell’s organelles as power plants, factories, roads, libraries, warehouses and more. Like a city, these structures require a great deal of […]

For every cell in the body there comes a time when it must decide what it wants to do for the rest of its life. In an article published in the journal PNAS, National Institutes of Health researchers report for the first time that ancient viral genes that were once […]

The Sagol Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Research at Shamir Medical Center, together with the Sackler School of Medicine and Sagol School of Neuroscience at Tel Aviv University, announced today that a peer-reviewed study has demonstrated for the first time that hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) can significantly enhance the cognitive performance of healthy older adults. […]

Researchers from the Penn Institute of Immunology discovered three distinct immune responses to the SARS-CoV2 infection that could help predict the trajectory of disease in severe COVID-19 patients and may ultimately inform how to best treat them. The findings were published in Science. “For patients who are hospitalized with COVID-19, there isn’t just […]

In a groundbreaking new study, researchers at the University of Minnesota have 3D printed a functioning centimeter-scale human heart pump in the lab. The discovery could have major implications for studying heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States killing more than 600,000 people a year. The […]

The development of the mammalian placenta depends upon an unusual twist that separates DNA’s classic double helix into a single-stranded form, Yale researchers report in the journal Nature. The Yale team also identified the molecular regulator that acts upon this single strand to accelerate or stop placental development, a discovery with […]

Yale pharmacology professor Barbara Ehrlich and her team have uncovered a mechanism driving a rare, lethal disease called Wolfram Syndrome and also a potential treatment. Their findings appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Wolfram Syndrome — a progressive degenerative disease that affects about one in 500,000 people worldwide […]

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 […]