General

A team of researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center used CRISPR technology to identify key regulators of aggressive chronic myeloid leukemia, a type of cancer that remains difficult to treat and is marked by frequent relapse. “We used CRISPR technology to carry […]

Researchers from Karolinska Institutet in collaboration with a lab in San Antonio USA, have uncovered how a specific population of lymphocytes promotes autoimmune disease by giving up their regulatory role in the immune system. The newly discovered mechanism is published in PNAS from research led by Dr. Saikiran Sedimbi and […]

Researchers have harnessed the power of electronic health records to gain insight in the potential of inflammation-controlling medications to reduce a patient’s Alzheimer’s disease risk. Rong Xu, professor of Biomedical Informatics and director of the Center for Artificial Intelligence in Drug Discovery at Case Western Reserve University; Mark Gurney, chairman […]

Before CRISPR became a household name as a tool for gene editing, researchers had been studying this unique family of DNA sequences and its role in the bacterial immune response to viruses. The region of the bacterial genome known as the CRISPR cassette contains pieces of viral genomes, a genomic […]

Despite centuries-long efforts to develop cures for cancer, various forms of the disease will kill about 630,000 people in the U.S. in 2020. But hopes are rising for cell therapies – sometimes called “living medicines” – that can boost and adapt the natural cancer-fighting potential of the immune system in ways […]

The conclusion to today's open access paper opens with the following declaration: “There is still no agreement among gerontologists as to the main aging-related issue: whether it is an accidental accumulation of damage in the organism or a result of the operation of a specially evolved program.” This is true in the […]

The CellAge database was announced last year, a repository of information on genes linked to cellular senescence. Cells become senescent in response to a variety of stresses, or upon reaching the Hayflick limit. A senescent cell ceases replication and secretes inflammatory and pro-growth signals. The process serves a useful function when such cells are present for […]

The size of the contribution of stochastic nuclear DNA damage to aging is debated. It causes cancer, when rare combinations of cancerous mutations occur and suppression of those early cancerous cells fails, but can it give rise to a meaningful degree of tissue dysfunction otherwise? The present consensus is that most such […]

When adult brain cells are injured, they revert to an embryonic state, according to new findings published in the journal Nature by researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues elsewhere. The scientists report that in their newly adopted immature state, the cells become capable of re-growing […]

Object recognition and facial recognition may seem like similar abilities, but new research finds that these behaviors are on the opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to physical signatures in the brain. According to a new study, published by a team of scientists at Vanderbilt, both recognition abilities […]

Researchers have discovered a technique for directly reprogramming skin cells into light-sensing rod photoreceptors used for vision. The lab-made rods enabled blind mice to detect light after the cells were transplanted into the animals’ eyes. The work, funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), published in Nature. The NEI is […]

With nearly $290M of new funding for seven years to research institutions around the country, the National Institutes of Health renewed its commitment to the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study(link is external), the largest long-term study of brain development and child health ever conducted in the United States. Launched in […]