CONN HASTINGS, OCTOBER 16TH, 2020 Researchers at the University of Colorado have developed a new rapid test for sickle cell disease. Their tiny device is less than the size of a quarter, and can provide a result in as little as one minute. The technology uses ultrasound to heat a protein sample and then measures how...
Scientists are getting closer to effective treatment for hair loss
Hair loss seems like a minor problem to many. You got bald, so what? Some people prefer this look. However, for many men going bald is a terrible experience and they would pay good money to avoid it. Now scientists at the University of Helsinki have identified a mechanism that is likely to prevent hair...
Engineered Developmental Signals Could Illuminate Regenerative Medicine
Synthetic ‘Morphogens’ Can Guide Complex Tissue Development, Twin Studies Show. For a tiny embryo to develop into an adult organism, its cells must develop in precise patterns and interact with their neighbours in carefully orchestrated ways. To create complex tissues and organs – from the pattern of rods and cones in the retina to the...
Delivery of T Cell Progenitor Cells as an Approach to Thymic Regeneration
The thymus is a small organ in which thymocytes generated in the bone marrow mature to become T cells of the adaptive immune system. Unfortunately, the thymus atrophies with age, its active tissue largely replaced by fat in most people by age 50 or so. Thereafter the adaptive immune system declines into immunosenescence and inflammaging, deprived of a sufficiently large supply of...
Our Mind-Boggling Sense of Smell
You might say the brain is our most photogenic organ. We are, thanks to modern neuroimaging, living amid an explosion of brain data. Just consider: We can zoom into the brain’s connectivity to the most minute, molecular level. We can trace individual cells as well as entire cell populations. We can turn neurons on and...
Magnetic field and hydrogels could be used to grow new cartilage
by Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Using a magnetic field and hydrogels, a team of researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have demonstrated a new possible way to rebuild complex body tissues, which could result in more lasting fixes to common injuries, such as cartilage degeneration. This research was published...
Immune activation in the liver illuminated with new glycan-tagging strategy
by The Scripps Research Institute Scripps Research biochemist Mia Huang, PhD, works in her lab in Jupiter, Florida. Human cells are encased by a membrane coated with diverse sugar molecules known as glycans. These glycans play many roles in health and disease, making them important to understand. Due to their unique properties, however, scientists have had limited tools...
Scientists map the human proteome
UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA Twenty years after the release of the human genome, the genetic “blueprint” of human life, an international research team, including the University of British Columbia’s Chris Overall, has now mapped the first draft sequence of the human proteome. Their work was published Oct. 16 in Nature Communications and announced today by the Human Proteome Organization...
Study identifies key enzyme for development of autoimmune diseases
FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO IMAGE: IT INCREASES CNS AUTOIMMUNE INFLAMMATION. THE CONFOCAL IMAGE DISPLAYS PKM2 EXPRESSION (IN RED) WITHIN THE INFLAMMATORY CELL INFILTRATE IN THE SPINAL CORD OF MICE SUBJECTED TO EXPERIMENTAL AUTOIMMUNE ENCEPHALOMYELITIS. Scientists affiliated with the Center for Research on Inflammatory Diseases, hosted by the University of...
Study discovers gene that helps us know when it’s time to urinate
NIH/NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS AND STROKE IMAGE: NIH FUNDED RESEARCHERS DISCOVERED THAT A GENE CALLED PIEZO2 MAY HELP US SENSE WHEN OUR BLADDERS ARE FULL, AND IT IS TIME TO URINATE. In a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study involving both mice and patients who are part of an NIH Clinical Center trial, researchers discovered that...