by Melissa Rohman, Northwestern University Muller’s lab recently demonstrated that calcium flux in endothelial cells is tightly coupled temporally and spatially with leukocyte transmigration. The arrows depict local elevation of [Ca2+]i (green) at endothelial junctions (blue) as neutrophils (red) transmigrate across a postcapillary venule in the mouse cremaster muscle in response to the inflammatory cytokine,...
by University of Texas at Austin A 3D atomic map, or structure, of the Gc protein (red and yellow) bound to two antibodies (green, blue and white) produced by a recovered CCHF patient. The Gc protein is a key molecule on the surface of the CCHF virus enabling it to infect cells. Credit: Akaash Mishra/University of...
by Trinity College Dublin Micrograph showing pulmonary macrophages in a bronchial wash specimen. Diff-Quik stain. Credit: Librepath/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 Scientists from the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (TBSI) have discovered two new ways to block inflammatory macrophages—front-line cells in our immune system that cause complications in a suite of diseases, including COVID-19. The scientists have...
ANN & ROBERT H. LURIE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF CHICAGO A surprising discovery may offer a promising new direction in the study of multiple sclerosis and other diseases of hypomyelination – when axons of neurons are not covered sufficiently in fatty sheaths (myelin), which disrupts communication between nerve cells. While investigating potential mechanisms of brain tumor...
IMAGE: NEW RESEARCH FROM UVA’S ZHEN YAN, PHD, AND COLLEAGUES REVEALS HOW OUR CELLS SENSE PROBLEMS AND PERFORM QUALITY CONTROL ON CELLULAR “BATTERIES” KNOWN AS MITOCHONDRIA. YAN HAS SPENT MANY YEARS SEEKING TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE WORKINGS OF MITOCHONDRIA, AND HE CALLS THE NEW DISCOVERY THE MOST EXCITING OF HIS CAREER. CREDIT: DAN ADDISON |...
by Public Library of Science While disease activity improves over time for most rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, long-term outcomes only improve in RA patients with autoantibodies, according to a new study published this week in PLOS Medicine by Xanthe Matthijssen of Leiden University Medical Center, Netherlands, and colleagues. The findings add to a growing body of evidence that...
Studies identify bulk of genetic variation that influences blood cell traits Two large-scale genetic studies have identified the bulk of genetic variation that influences medically-important characteristics of our blood cells. Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and colleagues from 101 research institutions world-wide, have studied hundreds of thousands...
BY ALISA ZAPP MACHALEK You’ve probably heard news stories and other talk about CRISPR. If you’re not a scientist—well, even if you are—it can seem a bit complex. Here’s a brief recap of what it’s all about. In 1987, scientists noticed weird, repeating sequences of DNA in bacteria. In 2002, the abbreviation CRISPR was coined...
A new study finds women with diabetes and significant levels of calcium in their coronary arteries have higher rates of death from cardiovascular disease and all causes than their male counterparts. Published in the American Diabetes Association journal, Diabetes Care, researchers from the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center compared...
By Dr. Liji Thomas, MD The global pandemic of COVID-19 continues to cause thousands of deaths and many hundreds of thousands of new infections every day. New methods are urgently needed to identify severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections and manage them better, including developing criteria for hospitalization. A new study by a...
