#New cell division mechanism discovered Canadian and British researchers have discovered that chromosomes play an active role in animal cell division.
It was observed by a team of researchers including Gilles Hickson, an assistant professor at the University of Montreal's Department of Pathology and Cell biology and researcher at the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Centre, his assistant Silvana Jananji, in collaboration with Nelio
and Sergey Lekomtsev, a postdoc, working in the group led by Buzz Baum of the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell biology at University college London.
and it was unknown until now that chromosomes could play an active role at this step in cytokinesis.
the separation of chromosomes followed by splitting of the cell into two new daughter cells by cytokinesis."
called microtubules, were involved in pulling chromosomes to opposite poles of the cell during the division process."
"At this time, microtubules physically separate the chromosomes via their central kinetochores while other microtubules signal to the cortex of the cell where its equator is, i e.,
Furthermore until now, it was believed that the chromosomes only played a passive role: that they were pulled by the microtubules
Chromosomes'active role Initially working with the cells of fruit flies using powerful genetic tools and sophisticated microscopy,
the research team discovered that chromosomes emit signals that influence the cortex of the cell to reinforce microtubule action.
This is what makes fruit flies such a powerful system for helping us to understand human biology.""When chromosomes are segregated,
they approach the membrane at the poles of the cell, and thanks to this enzyme's actions, this contributes to the softening of the polar membrane,
who has devoted the last 15 years of his research life to cell biology. In fact, all cancers are unchecked characterised by cell division,
the researchers used biochemical and biophysical cues to prompt stem cells to differentiate and self-organize into micron-scale cardiac tissue,
"said Kevin Healy, a UC Berkeley professor of bioengineering, who is co-senior author of the study with Dr. Bruce Conklin, a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular disease and a professor of medical genetics and cellular and molecular pharmacology at UC San francisco."
"This technology could help us quickly screen for drugs likely to generate cardiac birth defects, and guide decisions about
"This spatial differentiation happens in biology naturally, but we demonstrated this process in vitro, "said study lead author Zhen Ma, a UC Berkeley postdoctoral researcher in bioengineering."
"The confined geometric pattern provided biochemical and biophysical cues that directed cardiac differentiation and the formation of a beating microchamber."
"Could eventually replace animal models Modeling early heart development is difficult to achieve in a petri dish and tissue culture plates,
Dean of the University of Leeds'Faculty of Biological sciences and Professor of Mechanistic Biology, said:"
"There has been huge investment in sequencing the human genome with the idea that if we get all the relevant genetic information we can predict
whether you have a predisposition to cancer and, ultimately, use a precision medicine-based approach to develop a therapeutic approach.
A conventional approach to diagnosing this cancer would be to look for genetic modification of the receptor
and found that the"Akt pathway"could be activated without genetic modifications. Two proteins; Plc? 1 (pronounced"plc-gamma-1")and Grb2 (pronounced"grab-2),
Dr Zahra Timsah, University Academic Fellow at the University of Leeds'School of Molecular and Cellular biology,,
Measuring the levels of the proteins in patient tissues followed by database analysis of clinical information from The Cancer Genome Atlas
"Previous research findings have emphasised the roots of cancer in genetic mutation. Some studies have pointed to cancers that occur without genetic causes,
such as through epigenetic modifications of proteins, however the present study reveals that signalling though cell wall-based receptors can occur without receptor activation
scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Alexander Grass Center for Bioengineering report that they produced large amounts of functional liver cells from human embryonic and genetic engineered stem cells."
"The implications for liver biology and drug discovery are said quite staggering Prof. Oren Shibolet, Head of the Liver Unit at the Tel-aviv Sourasky Medical center, who was involved not in this study."
CRISPR/Cas9 enables the human genome to be altered with extreme precision by'cutting'both strands of the DNA in the double helix
and deleting defective genetic material. Gene-editing techniques could be used to edit almost any gene and treat genetic conditions,
Dr Marcy Darnovsky, director of the Center for Genetics and Society in Berkeley, California has criticised the Asilomar conference model.
the first author of the study published in Nature Genetics.''This could potentially benefit those who are at danger from lack of pain perception and help in the development of new treatments for pain relief.'
but they also found ten new mutations in PRDM12 gene. The gene was known already to be involved in the modification of histones,
which are able to switch other genes on and off-an epigenetic effect. By studying mouse and frog embryos as well as human stem cells
Epigenetic effects have been linked to pain sensitivity (see Bionews 741) and possibilities for using these mechanisms as a basis for treatments of pain are already being investigated.
Blood samples were analysed using a technique called'massively parallel sequencing'to look for an excess of genetic material from chromosome 21
The researchers, who presented their findings at the European Society of Human genetics conference in Glasgow,
#Study paves way for genetics-first approach to brain cancer treatment Two US studies have identified specific genetic mutations in gliomas
Using previous studies into tumour biology, three mutations were identified in patients with gliomas. Tumours taken from glioma patients were scored as positive or negative for these mutations,
which led to the creation of five categories of mutation combinations. The genetic profiles of the tumours were associated then with patient age, prognosis and the response of the tumour type to different treatments.
For example tumours with one genetic profile were shown to grow slowly, and respond well to drug treatment,
therefore patients with this tumour type are good candidates for treatment by chemotherapy only. A second tumour type was shown to respond poorly to chemotherapy only,
'Both studies can justifiably claim that molecular classification captures the biologic features of glioma variants better than does histopathological evaluation,
Previous studies have looked at the genomes of those with autism to identify the genes that might be responsible,
'Instead of starting from genetics, we've started with the biology of the disorder itself to try to get a window into the genome,
who runs the project out of Oxford Institute of Biomedical engineering. The professor told in-Pharmatechnologist. com the method can be used to help small and large molecule medicines hone in on their targets. ith all therapies that are used currently particularly cancer the major problem is very little of the drug makes it to the target site.
According to a recent review in Nature Materials making one billion human pluripotent stem cells with a polymeric substrate is ten to 15 times cheaper than using a biological equivalent like Synthemax,
According to a recent review in Nature Materials making one billion human pluripotent stem cells with a polymeric substrate is ten to 15 times cheaper than using a biological equivalent like Synthemax
Lead researcher Aydogan Ozcan, Howard hughes medical institute chancellor professor at UCLA, sat down with Bioscience Technology to talk about this advancement and its implications for resource-poor labs,
-and Nanophotonics Laboratory at UCLA Electrical engineering and Bioengineering Departments, said. To scan the DNA researchers developed a computational interface
and potentially decide on a drug choice based on some of the genetic testing copy number variations of certain genes that you would find in the sample taken from the patient. he technology also removes barriers to testing that cities
Besant and his team, including his supervisor Professor Shana Kelley of the Institute for Biomaterials & Biomedical engineering and the Faculties of Pharmacy and Medicine,
and biomedical engineering to design a chip that concentrates bacteria in a miniscule spaceust two nanolitres in volumen order to increase the effective concentration of the starting sample.
#Building a Better Microscope to See at the Atomic Level One of the more famous images in biology is known as"Photo 51,
One of the more famous images in biology is known as"Photo 51, "an image of DNA that chemist Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling created in 1952 by shooting X-rays through fibers of DNA
Yet biologists are interested particularly in these membrane proteins because the membrane is the cell dock, its security checkpoint, its mailbox.
biologists need to zoom in to the atomic level. The proteinsresistance to crystallization, therefore, left scientists in a bind.
or CRYO EM, the technique had largely been written off as useless for determining the structure of very small proteins.
and other institutions have made CRYO EM a key tool in structural biology. ryo-EM has made this marked jump in the last three or four years in terms of resolution,
Julius collaborated with Yifan Cheng, Ph d.,associate professor of biochemistry and biophysics, to use CRYO EM to visualize the structure of the body receptors that sense the spiciness of chili peppers and, in work reported last month, wasabi.
These receptors are involved also in how the body signals pain and the findings are already being used to test new pain drugs that bind to these receptors. y being able to really determine a molecule atomic structure,
you can make connections between the biology and chemistry, and it also provides capability for drug discovery
and design, said David Agard, Ph d.,professor of biophysics and biochemistry and a Howard hughes medical institute (HHMI) investigator,
who worked with Cheng to create better cameras and software for CRYO EM. o it really a huge change in what possible. etter Camera, Better Picture Yet for a long time,
scientists didn believe electron microscopy would be useful for imaging proteins and other biological samples at all.
The problem was that electron microscopes work by shooting electrons at the speed of light through a biological sample suspended in a vacuum;
this process often destroyed the raw biological samples researchers were trying to see. Then in the 1970s and 1980s, researchers at Heidelberg European Molecular biology Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory developed a way to protect samples
they rapidly freeze the purified biological samples in a very thin layer of liquid. Yet even when frozen at around-300°F,
Another challenge was that earlier digital cameras used in CRYO EM detected light not electrons. So when the electron passed through the sample the signal had to be translated into light signals,
CRYO EM had previously been used to examine larger structures, like ribosomes and viruses, but this was the first membrane protein to
who does CRYO EM research at HHMI Janelia Research Campus, In virginia. Earlier this year, Cheng and Julius determined the structure of another key protein receptor,
for sure, said Cheng. his opens up tremendous opportunities for the field to tackle many challenging problems in structural biology.
The resolution of CRYO EM as used by Cheng and Agard is currently about 3 ångströms;
Cheng plans to use CRYO EM to examine the same molecule that Watson, Crick, and Franklin probed over 60 years ago DNA and, more specifically, chromatin, the term for DNA in complex with its associated proteins."
and I anticipate that CRYO EM will also play a significant role in this area.""Source: University of California San Francisc r
Discovered in the 1970s, SERS is a sensing technique prized for its ability to identify chemical and biological molecules in a wide range of fields.
and measure chemical and biological molecules using a broadband nanostructure that traps wide range of light,
When a powerful laser interacts chemical and biological molecules, the process can excite vibrational modes of these molecules and produce inelastic scattering, also called Raman scattering, of light.
Kai Liu. he ability to detect even smaller amounts of chemical and biological molecules could be helpful with biosensors that are used to detect cancer,
which has been published online in the journal Biomaterials, the researchers describe using an experimental approach previously used to build bioartificial organs to engineer rat forelimbs with functioning vascular and muscle tissue.
They also provided evidence that the same approach could be applied to the limbs of primates. he composite nature of our limbs makes building a functional biological replacement particularly challenging,
The research team then cultured the forelimb matrix in a bioreactor, within which vascular cells were injected into the limb main artery to regenerate veins and arteries.
the grafts were removed from the bioreactor. Analysis of the bioartificial limbs confirmed the presence of vascular cells along blood vessel walls
Bernhard Jank, M d.,of the MGH Center for Regenerative medicine is lead author of the Biomaterials paper.
Ph d.,a postdoctoral fellow at the University Of Virginia School of medicine, told Bioscience Technology. ecently, we have seen that the areas that are surrounding the brain are full of immune cells, even in normal conditions,
Louveau told Bioscience Technology. he first question we are addressing is confirming that this structure exists in humans
a UCLA professor of bioengineering and chemistry who is affiliated with CNSI, the multidisciplinary team also included Michel Gilliet of Switzerland Lausanne University Hospital and Jure Dobnikar and Daan Frenkel of the University of Cambridge.
However, fewer companies have worked on vaccines and drugs for the MERS virus, according to Reuters. Small biotech companies such as Greffex,
The UC Berkeley team realized that the only way to clarify such vague classifications was to sequence the genomes of these organisms,
Colleagues at the Department of energy Joint Genome Institute shotgun-sequenced the DNA of all the microbes in the filtered sample,
a technique known as metagenomic analysis. Banfield team then assembled the millions of DNA pieces into eight complete bacterial genomes from four new and one previously studied phyla,
and draft genomes most of them more than 90 percent complete for 789 other bacteria. They are lumping the 35-plus phyla into a cluster they call the andidate phyla radiationbecause of their similarities to one another
and Microbial Biology at UC Berkeley. o one had been able to put all the pieces together before.
and small genomes, may be the reason they can be grown in lab culture: they are stripped-down life forms with the barebones requirement of genes,
The new discovery allowed the team not only to define about a third of all bacterial phyla but, thanks to the nearly complete genomes
the multi-protein machines that translate genetic instructions into proteins. he unusual ribosomes, the small genomes between 600 and 1,
There is a lot of biology that we haven been able to understand from our current methods, Brown said.
most after award-winning microbiologists but one Berkelbacteria after UC Berkeley. The work is supported by the Department of energy.
This discovery gives a new understanding to genetic diseases that are caused by mutations in these proteins.
a professor in Salk Molecular and Cell biology Laboratory and senior author of the new paper. hope people start to accept
Hetzer suspects that other nucleoporins also have roles in gene expression control, but cautions that the roles could be very differentach nucleoporin,
Mutations in many nucleoporin genes has been linked to human diseases and developmental disorders, including some forms of leukemia and inherited heart problems.
researchers have assumed the mutations led to disease by altering the transport of proteins in and out of a cell nucleus. ow,
and developmental disorders might actually be caused by the ability of these genes to regulate gene expression programs.
biocompatible materials, said co-senior author Zhen Gu, Ph d.,a professor in the Joint UNC/NC State department of Biomedical engineering.
"said first author Alphonsus Ng who recently graduated with a Phd from the U of T Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical engineering (IBBME) and Donnelly Centre,
the implications for human biology are indirect at best. owever, mouse brains have long been accepted as excellent basic research models for the human brain,
Earlier this month, MIT spinout Microchips Biotech partnered with a pharmaceutical giant to commercialize its wirelessly controlled, implantable,
Invented by Microchips Biotech cofounders Michael Cima, the David H. Koch Professor of Engineering, and Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor, the microchips consist of hundreds of pinhead-sized reservoirs,
and osteoporosis. Now Microchips Biotech will begin co-developing microchips with Teva Pharmaceutical, the world largest producer of generic drugs,
Apart from providing convenience, Microchips Biotech said these microchips could also improve medication-prescription adherence a surprisingly costly issue in the United states. A 2012 report published in the Annals of Internal medicine estimated that Americans who don stick to prescriptions rack up $100 billion
Microchips Biotech will continue work on its flagship product, a birth-control microchip, backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
Cima, who now serves on the Microchips Biotech board of directors with Langer, sees this hormone-releasing microchip as one of the first implantable rtificial organsbecause it acts as a gland. lot of the therapies are trying to chemically trick the endocrine systems Cima said. e are doing that with this artificial organ we created.
For years, the technology underwent rigorous research and development at Microchips Biotech. But in 2011, Langer and Cima,
MEMS innovations Microchips Biotech made several innovations in the microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) manufacturing process to ensure the microchips could be commercialized.
To do so, Microchips Biotech modified a cold-welding ongue and grooveprocess. This meant depositing a soft,
and target research on"hotspots"most likely to be important for biological function. Known as SAPH-ire (Structural Analysis of PTM Hotspots), the tool could accelerate the search for potential new drug targets on protein structures,
"SAPH-ire predicts positions on proteins that are likely to be important for biological function based on how many times those parts of the proteins have been found in a chemically-modified state
"explained Matthew Torres, an assistant professor in the School of Biology at the Georgia Institute of technology.""SAPH-ire is a tool for discovery,
"The tool and its proof-of-concept testing were reported June 12 in the journal Molecular and Cellular Proteomics.
Through modern mass spectrometry proteomics techniques, scientists have identified more than 300,000 post-translational modifications (PTMS) in different families of proteins across numerous species. These PTMS come in many forms, resulting
which we can understand what they do, from a classical biochemical approach. You have so much information that you don't know where to begin."
"Each PTM hotspot can then be ranked in order of highest to lowest potential for having significant biological function."
and they expect to see their program become part of informatics systems used to analyze large volumes of proteomics data emerging from labs around the world."
"Connecting SAPH-ire to other programs that convert mass spec data into actual PTM data could provide immediate biological relevance and prioritization for biochemists and others.
#New Single-use Harvesting Technology for High Cell Density Cultures Sartorius Stedim Biotech (SSB), a leading international supplier for the biopharmaceutical industry, has introduced Sartoclear Dynamics,
Sartorius Stedim Biotech has developed now this robust technology for biotech applications. Specially designed for cgmp processing
Nowadays, 2, 000 L is a standard size for single-use bioreactors, but a centrifuge is required still for removing cells from such volumes.
which is attractive for newcomers from emerging biotech markets. The ready-to-use clarification system enables harvesting of high cell density cultures up to 2, 000 liters 0
. E. P. Taylor Professor of Pain Studies at Mcgill University and Director of the Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain. he realization that the biological basis for pain between men and women
. assistant professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and a researcher in UNC Gene therapy Center and Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities, developed the experimental treatment in studies conducted at UNC.
This trial is the first in history to deliver gene therapy through the spinal fluid to test the potential to achieve broad treatment of the spinal cord and brain (central nervous system or CNS.
and wee already seeing clear application of this approach to treat other diseases studied in my lab. ray serves as an associate investigator on the trial as does R. Jude Samulski, Ph d.,director of the UNC Gene therapy Center."
"This specific study represents a culmination of years of basic research from the UNC Gene therapy Center
if we could'help save her child',to last week gene therapy administration; a remarkable and humbling journey that I privileged to be a part of."
"This first intrathecal (into the spinal fluid) delivery of a viral gene therapy vector in a human patient is a fundamental step towards developing a causal treatment for giant axonal neuropathy (GAN), a devastating progressive neurogenetic
#Microarray for Research into Haematological and Solid Cancers Oxford Gene Technology (OGT) released a new microarray designed to improve the accuracy and efficiency of cancer research.
because theye so hard to study, said Tony Hunter, American Cancer Society Professor, holder of the Dulbecco Chair in the Salk Molecular and Cell biology Laboratory and senior author of the new paper.
Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine, was led by Jeffrey Zink and Fuyu Tamanoi, both members of the California Nanosystems Institute and Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA,
who also is a professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics and a director of the signal transduction and therapeutics program at the Jonsson Cancer Center. his demonstrates the effectiveness of our treatment
and encourages us to explore further what is happening to the tumor. In previous studies
sirna has been shown to effectively shut down gene expression in tumor cells grown in the laboratory. But the technique had not been effective in living organisms
who also is distinguished a UCLA professor of chemistry and biochemistry and a pioneer in the design and synthesis of multifunctional mesoporous silica nanoparticles u
Anstie told Bioscience Technology. ather than sniffing out a variety of smells as a dog would,
Anstie told Bioscience Technology, ther conditions, although they have a clear molecular signature in the breath may be masked by the general complexity involved in getting a good repeatable sample.
such strains are only found at low levels within the human gut, according to Timothy Lu, an associate professor of biological engineering and of electrical engineering and computer science,
a professor of biological engineering at MIT. e wanted to work with strains like B. thetaiotaomicron that are present in many people in abundant levels,
The team developed a series of genetic parts that can be used to precisely program gene expression within the bacteria. sing these parts
Tom Ellis, group leader of the Centre for Synthetic biology at Imperial College London, who was involved not in the research,
said the paper takes many of the best tools that have been developed for synthetic biology applications with E coli
or biosensors, in bacteria that are placed then in the gut, this paper stands out from the crowd by first engineering a member of the Bacteroides genus,
was carried out in collaboration with the School of Biochemistry at the University of Bristol, the Wound Biology Group at the Cardiff Institute of Tissue Engineering and Repair,
In experiments published in the journal Nature Communications, the researchers used biochemical and biophysical cues to prompt stem cells to differentiate
said Kevin Healy, a UC Berkeley professor of bioengineering, who is co-senior author of the study with Dr. Bruce Conklin,
a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular disease and a professor of medical genetics and cellular and molecular pharmacology at UC San francisco. his technology could help us quickly screen for drugs likely to generate cardiac birth defects,
which are critical to the development of heart tissue. his spatial differentiation happens in biology naturally,
a UC Berkeley postdoctoral researcher in bioengineering. he confined geometric pattern provided biochemical and biophysical cues that directed cardiac differentiation and the formation of a beating microchamber.
said Warren Ruder, an assistant professor of biological systems engineering in both the College of Agriculture and Life sciences and the College of Engineering."
For future experiments, Ruder is building real-world robots that will have the ability to read bacterial gene expression levels in E coli using miniature fluorescent microscopes.
understanding the biochemical sensing between organisms could have far reaching implications in ecology, biology, and robotics.
engineered gene circuits in E coli, microfluid bioreactors, and robot movement. The bacteria in the mathematical experiment exhibited their genetic circuitry by either turning green or red, according to
Ruder conducted his research in collaboration with biomedical engineering doctoral student Keith Heyde, of Wilton, Connecticut, who studies phyto-engineering for biofuel synthesis. e hope to help democratize the field of synthetic biology for students and researchers all over the world with this model,
said Ruder. n the future, rudimentary robots and E coli that are used already commonly separately in classrooms could be linked with this model to teach students from elementary school through the Ph d.-level about bacterial relationships with other organisms. ource:
a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company which owns the core T-cell receptor technology and funded the study.
According to Adaptimmune, the trial is published the first study of lentiviral vector mediated TCR gene expression in humans.
professor in Microbiology-Immunology and Medicine-Infectious disease. hese findings lay the foundation for future studies to further understand the mechanisms for how the escape to the bloodstream occurs.
professor of stem cell biology in the School of medicine led the research project, iscovery of a Novel Polymer for Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Expansion and Multilineage Differentiation. he possibilities for regenerative medicine are still being reached in the form of clinical trials,
said Stephen Beverley, Ph d.,senior author of one of the studies and the Marvin A. Brennecke Professor and head of the Department of Molecular Microbiology at Washington University School of medicine in St louis. n the future,
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