by UT Southwestern Medical Center This graphic illustrates three-dimensional genome organization maps obtained form a representative metastatic cancer cell line. Credit: UT Southwestern Medical Center UT Southwestern researchers have identified vast webs of small snippets of the genome that interact with each other and with genes to promote prostate cancer. Their findings, published June 22...
Inaccurate: RNA from a vaccine would not be able to directly alter our DNA, in part because of the chemical differences between the two nucleic acids. RNA also would not persist long enough to cause autoimmunity. Autoimmune diseases are chronic in nature, whereas RNA has a very short lifespan, being quickly degraded after it has...
by Osaka University Tet-mediated B cell tolerance Tet2/3-deficient B cells are activated by self-antigen and express exaggerated amount of CD86. Then those B cells stimulate autoreactive CD4+ T cells, resulting in autoimmune response. Credit: Osaka University The immune system is supposed to protect from external microbial invaders, but sometimes it turns its efforts inward, potentially...
by Cristy Lytal, University of Southern California Scientists from the USC Stem Cell laboratories of Neil Segil and Justin Ichida are whispering the secrets of a simpler way to generate the sensory cells of the inner ear. Their approach uses direct reprogramming to produce sensory cells known as “hair cells,” due to their hair-like protrusions...
by Bob Yirka, Science X Network, Medical Xpress A team of researchers affiliated with a host of institutions in China and one in the U.S. has found evidence of a new strain of swine flu that poses a possible threat to humans. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the...
By Christy Cheung, MRes Neuronal cell death in the nervous system is a major contribution to neurodegenerative diseases. Despite occasional neuronal deaths during the process of aging, extensive neuronal cell death is rare in adults with a mature central nervous system (CNS). Nevertheless, there is an increased neuronal loss in patients with neurodegenerative diseases compared...
By Heidi Ledford, Nature magazine on June 25, 2020 A suite of experiments that use the gene-editing tool CRISPR–Cas9 to modify human embryos have revealed how the process can make large, unwanted changes to the genome at or near the target site. The studies were published this month on the preprint server bioRxiv, and have...
by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute A novel liquid biopsy method can detect kidney cancers with high accuracy, including small, localized tumors which are often curable but for which no early detection method exists, say scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The report in Nature Medicine suggests that if validated in larger trials and applied widely, the non-invasive...
Multi-disciplinary research has led to the innovative fabrication of molecule-sized robots. Scientists are now advancing their efforts to make these robots interact and work together in the millions, explains a review in the journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials. A molecular robot, which is typically between 100 nanometers to 100 micrometers long, requires an...
by RIKEN A new study by researchers at the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Science in Japan reports differences in blood cell mutations between Japanese and European populations. The study found that these pre-clinical mutations were strongly associated with different types of cancers and can explain why Europeans have higher rates of chronic lymphocytic leukemia,...
