and responds by activating cellular gene expression programs. Observations that fructose potently activates Chrebp in rodent livers
Ribosomes common to all living organisms are the machines that read the genetic code producing proteins based on the instructions therein.
It quickly grew into an effort involving two Ph d. microbiologists a talented graduate student and several analytical biochemists.
The above story is provided based on materials by American Society for Microbiology. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
#Bio-inspired nano-cocoons offer targeted drug delivery against cancer cells Biomedical engineering researchers have developed a drug delivery system consisting of nanoscale ocoonsmade of DNA that target cancer cells
and less toxic to patients than systems that use synthetic materialssays Dr. Zhen Gu senior author of a paper on the work and an assistant professor in the joint biomedical engineering program at NC State and UNC
Margaret Reiff an undergraduate student in the joint biomedical engineering department; Tianyue Jiang a Ph d. student in the joint biomedical engineering department and at the China Pharmaceutical University;
and Dr. Ran Mo a former postdoctoral researcher in the joint biomedical engineering department now at the China Pharmaceutical University.
This research was supported by the North carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute under grant number 1ul1tr001111 and with funding from NC State and UNC Chapel hill.
Researchers characterize new tumor syndrome Scientists at the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) of the University of Luxembourg have published their findings that mutations in a gene known as ARMC5 promote the growth of benign tumors in the adrenal glands
Now for the first time a mutation of ARMC5 has been characterized as the cause behind the growth of meningeal tumors.
Growth of these adrenal cortex adenomas is based on a combination of hereditary and spontaneous mutations: It affects people in
If the second allele of ARMC5 later also undergoes a spontaneous mutation in the adrenal cortex then the gene no longer functions.
and simultaneously a meningeal tumor that somatic that is nonhereditary ARMC5 mutations are present in both tumors.
which other types of tumor ARMC5 mutations are responsible for tumor growth: Building upon that we can learn
For the water to reach the households in a clean state via the distribution network a team headed by microbiologist Ursula Obst who directs the partial project for water processing and water quality assurance developed methods for the central semi
and metal--and also suppressed biofilm formation in a study reported in Nature Biotechnology. But that's not All the team implanted medical-grade tubing
Ingber is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical school and Boston Children's Hospital as well as professor of bioengineering at Harvard School of engineering and Applied sciences (SEAS.
One protein directs epigenetic players Every single human cell contains every single human gene. But depending on the cell only some of these genes need to be expressed or turned on.
Now scientists know that there are tiny proteins--epigenetic proteins--that sit atop the genetic code inside cells.
Now UNC researchers discovered that one gene-regulating protein called Bre1 must be maintained in the proper amount for other epigenetic players to do their jobs properly.
All this supporting staff is part of epigenetics--epi meaning on or above--a field that focuses on the environment and the players that allow our genes to act.
I think epigenetics is a new frontier of cancer research says Brian Strahl Ph d. a professor of biochemistry and biophysics in the UNC School of medicine.
We can now sequence the entire genome of a cancer cell and what we're finding is that many cancers have mutations in the epigenetic machinery.
We're not just finding this in cancer cell lines in the lab but in cancer patients.
or denies access to the genetic information inside our cells. This is what Strahl studies. His goal is to figure out precisely how histones contribute to basic biological functions
and in turn contribute to cancers and other diseases. Adding a twist to this idea however is the fact that not every histone is the same.
or further prevent access to our genetic information--our DNA. And this access or denial ultimately affects genes
and lungs for example and the various biological chemicals that simply make us tick. Proper nutrients for instance allow for the formation of chemical tags to direct the histones to activate genes in the proper ways.
Nasty environmental stuff such as cigarette smoke can mess up the epigenetic machinery. Yet these chemical tags are not ultimately in charge of the genes.
what had been an epigenetic mystery. Scientific literature on Bre1 had been mixed. Some studies indicated that Bre1 had a role as a tumor suppressor Strahl said.
Work the microbiome was pioneered by Washington University scientists led by Jeffrey Gordon MD the Dr. Robert J. Glaser Distinguished University Professor and director of the Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology.
or biological contaminants with far-reaching implications for public health including homeland security concerns. Applying world class research to water quality has to be viewed as a critical component for sustaining society as a whole says Clarkson University President Tony Collins. As healthy water becomes increasingly scarce establishing real-time data as the new standard for understanding water quality around the globe
and designed said Peng Yin senior author of the paper Wyss Core Faculty member and Assistant professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical school.
and Biophysics led by Mark Bathe senior co-author of the paper. The paper's findings describe a significant advance in DNA NANOTECHNOLOGY as well as in inorganic nanoparticle synthesis Yin said.
But as the disease evolved these became less important with the majority of faults now caused by a new process generating mutations within the tumour controlled by a protein called APOBEC.
"In-field detection of chemical and biological threats is the challenge that we are trying to address,
"This technology can be used broadly for chemical and biological sensing, including homeland security, forensics and environmental monitoring,
"We expect this can be overcome by integrating biomimetic target recognition elements with plasmonic paper in the near future,
and Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and its Director of the Islet and Pancreas Transplant Program and the Chief of the Division of Transplantation, said work described in today's Cell"will leave a dent in the history of diabetes.
and the University's Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology--both of which were created more than a decade after he began his quest--said that
the Samuel A. Goldblith Professor of Applied Biology, Associate professor in the Department of Chemical engineering, the Institute of Medical Engineering and Science,
A study published by Cell Press October 9th in the American Journal of Human genetics shows that neurodevelopmental disorders caused by distinct genetic mutations produce similar molecular effects in cells suggesting that a one-size-fits-all therapeutic approach could be effective
or more different disorders mutations in many different genes can lead to similar diseases. As a result it has not been clear
whether genetic mutations that cause neurodevelopmental disorders affect distinct molecular pathways or converge on similar cellular functions.
and psychiatric problems and mutations in euchromatic histone methyltransferase 1 (EHMT1) cause similar symptoms in a disease known as 9q34 deletion syndrome.
Strikingly both of these genetic modifications resulted in molecular patterns that resemble those of cells that are differentiating
The team used the same approach to identify mutations and heritable variants that have been linked to breast cancer and Alzheimer's disease,
the Clyde and Helen Wu Professor of Chemical Biology (in Biomedical Informatics and the Institute for Cancer Genetics), chair of the Department of Systems Biology,
and director of the JP Sulzberger Columbia Genome Center, at Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons.
However, these models provided no information on the key genetic mutations that presumably drive the abnormal activity of these master regulators.
"Conventional techniques, like genome-wide association studies, must test all possible genetic mutations and variants in a disease cell, compared with a normal cell,
we have sufficient statistical power to identify only the most striking mutations. The DIGGIT algorithm, combined with
and identify critical hidden mutations that otherwise would have gone undetected.""The new approach was tested on mesenchymal glioblastoma, the most aggressive subtype of the disease,
by jointly analyzing the gene expression and mutational profile data of more than 250 patients collected by the Cancer Genome Atlas consortium.
The CUMC team found two genes--C/EBPD and KLHL9--that appear to activate glioblastoma's master regulators.
C/EBPD, had already been identified by the labs of Dr. Califano and of Antonio Iavarone, MD, professor of neurology and of pathology & cell biology (in the Institute for Cancer Genetics),
their tumors regressed, providing further evidence that KLHL9 mutations (which were found in 50 percent of the mesenchymal glioblastoma patients),
confirming that the algorithm is capable of capturing driver mutations in other types of cancer.
The latter can identify statistical associations between mutations and disease, but cannot explain how the mutation drives that effect,
"said Dr. Califano.""Because DIGGIT identifies disease-causing genes by tracing their aberrant activity through the regulatory network of the cell,
it provides direct information on the specific molecular interactions through which a genetic mutation causes disease--the'mechanism.'
""Even in our studies of breast cancer and Alzheimer's disease, where the goal was simply to show that DIGGIT could identify mutations
which these mutations likely work to drive disease, adding significant new knowledge that can be tested rapidly in the lab"Dr. Chen said a
As the instructions for all cell processes the DNA must be accessible to the cell transcription machinery yet be compressed tightly enough to fit inside the nucleus. Scientists have theorized long that the way DNA is packaged affects gene expression.
and repressing gene expression. or the first time we see that the structure of the chromosomes contributes to gene controlsays Whitehead Member Richard Young who is also a professor of biology at MIT. n the past there have been all kinds of ideas around how the structure might affect gene control
elements to highly condensed chromosomes. Working in mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCS) the Young lab examined the scaffolding landscape found within topologically associated domains.
Using a technique known as Chia-PET the researchers focused on how these proteins interact. y knowing which of the Cohesin/CTCF bound sites are coming together in physical proximity we started to go from a linear view of the genome to sets of looping interactions
which led us to these domains these super enhancer domains where gene expression enhancement is contained within the loopsays Jill Dowen a postdoctoral researcher in Young lab. Dowen
and CTCF acting as the purse strings to create a DNA loop that cradles proteins enhancing or repressing gene expression.
but they were in similar locations as in the ESC genome. Of course the repression or enhancement role of the loops differed between ESCS and the more differentiated cells.
although they may switch their contents and therefore their effect on gene expression. The researchers plan to study the loop structure
and its effects. think wee filled in a major gap in the understanding of how gene expression is linked to the local organization of chromosomessays Hnisz. t will be exciting to explore
"The study results appear in the journal Molecular and Cellular biology. Andersen notes that several medicines already exist that could block autophagy
since the earliest days of endoscopy,"says Timo Cuntz, a member of the Project Group for Automation in Medicine and Biotechnology PAMB in Mannheim, a part of the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA.
Using brain scans from the ENIGMA Consortium and genetic information from The Mouse Brain Library he was able to identify a novel gene,
"We are living in a big data world thanks to the likes of the Human genome Project and post-genome technologies.
molecules that until recently were dismissed by scientists as nonfunctional noise in the genome. Now, lncrnas are thought to regulate normal cellular development
"The findings advance our understanding of the role of lncrnas in cancer biology and, importantly, broaden the opportunity to use lncrnas as biomarkers to detect prostate cancer."
and normal epithelial prostatic cells using NCODE human ncrna array and Sureprint G3 human lncrna microarrays.
and AK024556 (also known as SPRY4-IT1) were confirmed in prostate cancer cell lines by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qpcr) analysis. The SPRY4-IT1 was found to be regulated up more than 100-fold in PC3 cells compared with prostatic epithelial cells.
and 10 up-regulated lncrnas were detected using microarrays. An additional set of 18 prostate cancer tissue samples was analyzed by qpcr
So an effective diagnostic has to tell you that something has changed on a biochemical level to make that bacterium behave more pathogenically."
These properties also give biofilms a unique biochemical fingerprint. Thinking that biofilms could be part of the solution, in 2008,
Bakaletz and Das started searching for the unique biochemical signature of NTHI's biofilm. In the process, they developed a novel chinchilla model of bacterial sinusitis following a viral infection.
"said Dustin Tyler, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve and director of the research."
Then the human's biological control system, that is nerves and muscles, is interfaced also to the machine's control system via neuromuscular electrodes.
between biology and mechatronics.""The direct skeletal attachment is created by what is known as osseointegration, a technology in limb prostheses pioneered by associate professor Rickard Brånemark and his colleagues at Sahlgrenska University Hospital.
Electrodes are implanted in nerves and muscles as the interfaces to the biological control system. These electrodes record signals which are transmitted via the osseointegrated implant to the prostheses,
says Dr. Scott Blanchard, an associate professor of physiology and biophysics at Weill Cornell, and one of three co-lead authors on the Science study.
who is also associate director of Weill Cornell's chemical biology program.""What we have shown in the Science study is that we now have the means to obtain real-time images of processes happening on the surface of intact HIV particles,
The team used the technology to study motions of proteins on the surface of the HIV virus (called envelope proteins) that are key to the virus's ability to infect human immune cells carrying CD4 receptor proteins.
CD4 receptor proteins help HIV bind to a cell. The envelope consists of three gp120
"that open up like a flower in the presence of CD4, exposing the gp41 subunit that is essential for subsequent aspects of the mechanism that causes infection."
which contained beacons that did not alter the biology of the particles. Then they watched.
"Many scientists believe that the particles remain in one conformation until they come across a CD4-positive cell.
when no CD4 was present--they change shape all the time.""The researchers were then able to watch how the viruses responded
when synthetic CD4 was introduced. They also saw that antibodies known to exhibit some effectiveness acted to prevent gp120 from opening,
"The practical outcome from this technology is that we can begin to understand how the biological system moves.
professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell.""The antibodies used in the crystallography study are ones that we observed to stop the dance of the HIV envelope proteins,
and where these antibodies bind provides an important step forward to understanding HIV's biology, "he says.
real-time information to be obtained about molecular processes in complex biological systems
#Slime-producing molecules help spread disease from cats to endangered sea otters The spread of diseases from land animals to sea otters
#Smallest world record has ndless possibilitiesfor bionanotechnology Scientists from the University of Leeds have taken a crucial step forward in bionanotechnology a field that uses biology to develop new tools for science technology and medicine.
demonstrates how stable'lipid membranes'--the thin'skin'that surrounds all biological cells--can be applied to synthetic surfaces.
Importantly, the new technique can use these lipid membranes to'draw'--akin to using them like a biological ink--with a resolution of 6 nanometres (6 billionths of a meter
and promises the ability to position functional biological molecules--such as those involved in taste, smell,
"explained Evans. Aside from biological applications, this area of research could revolutionise renewable energy production. Working in collaboration with researchers at the University of Sheffield,
the researchers will be able to arbitrarily swap out the biological units and replace them with synthetic components to create a new generation of solar cells.
"This is part of the emerging field of synthetic biology, whereby engineering principles are being applied to biological parts
--whether it is for energy capture, or to create artificial noses for the early detection of disease
#Universal Ebola drug target identified by researchers University of Utah biochemists have reported a new drug discovery tool against the Ebola virus.
Ph d.,(research assistant professor of biochemistry) and Michael Kay, M d.,Ph d.,(professor of biochemistry). Key contributions to this work were provided by Dr. John Dye's laboratory at the U s army Medical Research Institute of Infectious diseases (USAMRIID), the lab of Christopher P. Hill, D. Phil.
professor and co-chair of the U of U Department of Biochemistry, and a group led by Brett Welch, Ph d. at Navigen, Inc.,a Salt lake city pharmaceutical discovery and development company.
"Importantly, viral sequence information from the epidemic reveals rapid changes in the viral genome, while our target sequence remains the same.
However in the past decade scientists realized that exosomes play important roles in many biological functions through capsuling
or less to carry out multiple laboratory functions such as sample purification running of chemical and biological reactions and analytical measurement.
Specifically principal investigator Albert R. La Spada MD Phd professor of cellular and molecular medicine chief of the Division of Genetics in the Department of Pediatrics and associate director of the Institute for Genomic medicine
but the biological mechanisms involved are unknown. Researchers at Inserm Unit 1073 Nutrition inflammation and dysfunction of the gut-brain axis (Inserm/University of Rouen) have demonstrated the involvement of a protein produced by some intestinal bacteria that may be the source of these disorders.
or chronic inflammation by regulating how immune cells called CD4+T cells differentiate. Mice receiving CD4+T cells along with NAD+present had delayed a significant onset of disease as well as a less severe form
therefore demonstrating the molecule's protective properties. This is a universal molecule that can potentially treat
#Non-coding half of human genome unlocked with novel sequencing technique An obscure swatch of human DNA once thought to be nothing more than biological trash may actually offer a treasure trove of insight into complex genetic-related diseases such as cancer
and diabetes thanks to a novel sequencing technique developed by biologists at Texas A&m University.
The game-changing discovery was part of a study led by Texas A&m biology doctoral candidate John C. Aldrich
This mysterious tightly packed section of the vast non-coding section of the human genome widely dismissed by geneticists as junk previously was thought by scientists to have no discernable function at all.
In the course of his otherwise routine analysis of DNA in fruit flies Aldrich was able to monitor dynamics of the heterochromatic sequence by modifying a technique called quantitative polymerase chain reaction (QPCR) a process used to amplify specific DNA sequences from a relatively small amount
and that mutations which could affect other parts of the genome are capable of occurring.
This work opens up the other non-coding half of the genome. Maggert explains that chromosomes are located in the nuclei of all human cells
and the DNA material in these chromosomes is made up of coding and non-coding regions.
The coding regions known as genes contain the information necessary for a cell to make proteins
This enables us to answer a very specific question right here in the lab. The uncharted genome sequences have been a point of contention in scientific circles for more than a decade according to Maggert a Texas A&m faculty member since 2004.
It had long been believed that the human genome--the blueprint for humanity individually and as a whole--would be packed with complex genes with the potential to answer some of the most pressing questions in medical biology.
When human DNA was sequenced finally with the completion of the Human genome Project in 2003 he says that perception changed.
Based on those initial reports researchers determined that only two percent of the genome (about 21000 genes) represented coding DNA.
Since then numerous other studies have emerged debating the functionality or lack thereof of non-coding so-called junk DNA.
Now thanks to Aldrich's and Maggert's investigation of heterochromatin the groundwork has been laid to study the rest of the genome.
There is so much talk about understanding the connection between genetics and disease and finding personalized therapies Maggert said.
unless biologists can look at the entire genome. We still can't--yet --but at least now we're a step closer.
and biological engineering and a senior author of the paper which appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week.
Other authors are Jongyoon Han an MIT professor of electrical engineering and biological engineering SMART researchers Zhiyong Poon L. M. Nyan and Tanwi Kaushik and National University of Singapore
Compared with cells that have committed already to their final fate immature cells have genetic material that moves around inside the nucleus producing more fluctuations of the nuclear cell membrane.
'A new method developed at the Centre for Plant Biotechnology and Genomics (CBGP UPM-INIA) has shown that by the contact of a plant with a strain of the Colletotrichum tofieldiae microorganism previously isolated this plant can increase the number size
pageac=patente. jsp&idpatente=812) and there is an exclusive commercial patent license agreement with Plant Response Biotech S l. a spin-off company from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid created in 2008 that focuses its work on the development
Our results explain the mechanism behind herpes infection by showing how the DNA of the virus enters the cell said Alex Evilevitch a researcher in biochemistry and biophysics at Lund University and Carnegie mellon University.
which means that the drug can resist the virus's mutations said Alex Evilevitch. The second study that Evilevitch and his colleagues have published recently is about bacteriophages
which were published recently in Nature Chemical Biology and PNAS. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Lund University.
and biotechnology to precisely manipulate small volumes of fluids for use in applications such as enzymatic or DNA analysis pathogen detection clinical diagnostic testing and synthetic chemistry.
and materials science professor Noah Malmstadt and biomedical engineering graduate student Bryant Thompson designed computer models for eight modular fluidic and instrumentation components (MFICS pronounced em-fix) that would each perform a simple operation.
For the past 20 years microfluidics has been considered a boon for fields like biotechnology and engineering but has yet to be standardized
And because the new process creates membranes on silicon surfaces it is a significant step toward creating bio-silicon interfaces where biological sensor molecules can be printed onto cheap silicon chip holding integrated electronic circuits.
and define walls between neighboring cells--a functional compartmentalization that serves many physiological processes protecting genetic material regulating
because they offer the possibility of containing membrane proteins--biological molecules that could be used for detecting toxins diseases and many other biosensing applications.
Images of the gigantic protein in unprecedented detail will transform scientists'understanding of exactly how cells copy their chromosomes
which a cell copies its chromosomes and pulls them apart into two separate cells. Mitosis is used in cell division by all animals and plants.
and mesh with other units at different points in the cell cycle allowing it to control a range of mitotic processes including the initiation of DNA replication the segregation of chromosomes along protein'rails'called spindles and the ultimate splitting of one
The fantastic insights into molecular structure provided by this study are a vivid illustration of the critical role played by fundamental cell biology in cancer research.
and how to tackle them more effectively Revealing the intricate details of biological shapes is a hugely important step towards identifying targets for future cancer drugs.
and Edwin Thomas, the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Rice's George R. Brown School of engineering, professor in mechanical engineering and materials science and in chemical and biomolecular engineering g
Linden is working closely with project co-investigators Professor R. Scott Summers of environmental engineering and Professor Alan Weimer chemical and biological engineering and a team of postdoctoral fellows professionals graduate students undergraduates
The word I use is blindsiding says limnologist W. Charles Kerfoot a professor of biological sciences at Michigan Tech.
With the support of a grant from the Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities (URECA) Center Lee teamed up with Craig Hamilton an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Wake Forest Baptist Medical center
Tittel is the J. S. Abercrombie Professor in Electrical and Computer engineering and a professor of bioengineering.
a member of the Koch Institute and a professor of biological engineering and of materials sciences and engineering, is the paper senior author.
a professor of microbiology at the University of Iowa Carver School of medicine and director of the school Center for Immunology and Immune-Based Diseases, says that this paper presents a reative new approach with considerable potential in the development
and using nucleic acids bears a risk for accidental genome editing. These methods are also toxic,
After developing Cellsqueeze at MIT, Sharei co-founded SQZ Biotech in 2013 to further develop and commercialize the platform.
Meanwhile, SQZ Biotech aims to reduce the footprint of its device, which could potentially lower the time
or your doctor office. s the biology and technology become further refined, the authors say that their approach could potentially be a more efficient, more effective,
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