For almost any conceivable protein, corresponding antibodies can be developed to block it from binding or changing shape, which ultimately prevents it from carrying out its normal function. As such, scientists have looked to antibodies as a way of shutting down proteins inside cells for decades, but there is still no consistent way to get...
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Researchers discover a way to turn Parkinson protein on itself
This news or article is intended for readers with certain scientific or professional knowledge in the field. Researchers have found a way to create a super-inhibitor that effectively stops the development of Parkinsons by using the Parkinson disease itself as an active building block. Various neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s are closely linked to the...
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Escaping Alzheimer’s
There is, in Colombia, a family with a tragic legacy of forgetfulness. “People in this large family get Alzheimer’s like clockwork at age 45-50,” said UC Santa Barbara neuroscientist Kenneth S. Kosik, the campus’s Harriman Professor of Neuroscience and co-director of the Neuroscience Research Institute. Their aggressive, genetic form of the disease has been passed...
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High-tech foam offers new tool for developing stem cells
Two Florida State University researchers are developing a high-tech material currently used in athletic equipment and prosthetics into a special tool to better develop stem cells. The work could improve drug screening, disease modeling, precision medicine, and cell therapy. FAMU-FSU College of Engineering researchers Yan Li, an associate professor in chemical and biomedical engineering, and...
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Lab leads effort to model proteins tied to cancer
This news or article is intended for readers with certain scientific or professional knowledge in the field. Computational scientists, biophysicists and statisticians from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) are leading a massive multi-institutional collaboration that has developed a machine learning-based simulation for next-generation supercomputers capable of modeling protein interactions...
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1 PROTEIN MAY SHIELD WOMEN FROM HERPES ‘NEUROINVASION’
A pro-inflammatory protein could play an important part in improving current and future therapeutics for the herpes virus, according to new research. Researchers investigated whether the protein IL-36g is an essential component of the immune response to a herpes infection, or if other mechanisms can compensate for a lack of it. Cytokines, proteins essential to...
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Gastric Volume Reduction Surgery Leads to Blood Serum Proteome Changes
By Christian Zerfaß, Ph.D. Obesity is an increasingly common health problem. To counter obesity, gastric surgeries can be carried out to reduce the gastric volume, such as laparoscopic gastric plication (LGP). It is conceivable that a lower gastric volume leads to reduced food uptake, and thus caloric intake. However, wider metabolic changes can follow gastric...
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Super-grafts’ that could treat diabetes
By successfully strengthening pancreatic islets before transplantation, researchers at UNIGE and HUG are hoping for a significant improvement in the success of cell transplants in patients with severe diabetes UNIVERSITÉ DE GENÈVE To save patients with a severe form of type 1 diabetes (characterized by the absence of functional insulin-producing cells), pancreatic cell transplantation is sometimes the...
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Genetically modified mice can show which functional foods can heal kidney disease
Scientists create a mouse model that can show kidney disease progression and treatment in live animals HIROSHIMA UNIVERSITY Chronic kidney disease affects 750 million people each year. Aging populations and an increase in diseases such as diabetes will lead to a greater burden of kidney disease. In general, when doctors want to check if a...
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A game-changing test for Prion, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases is on the horizon
Synthetic molecules made at Berkeley Lab can be used to diagnose numerous devastating illnesses DOE/LAWRENCE BERKELEY NATIONAL LABORATORY There are currently no effective treatments for prion diseases, a family of fatal neurodegenerative conditions caused by accumulations of misfolded copies of a naturally occurring protein. But now, there is finally an effective way to test for them. As reported in...