Category Biology/Biotechnology

University of Utah bioengineering assistant professor Robby Bowles and bioengineering doctoral student Niloofar Farhan are part of a team that has discovered a way to curb chronic pain by modulating genes that reduce tissue- and cell-damaging inflammation. The team is using the CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat) system — new technology of modifying human genetics — to stop cell death and keep the cells from producing molecules that damage tissue and result in chronic pain. Credit: Dan Hixson/University of Utah College of Engineering

For millions of sufferers, there is nothing more debilitating than chronic back or joint pain. It can feel like a lifetime of misery...

Images that predate the formation of toxic clumps of beta-amyloid, the protein believed to be at the root of Alzheimer’s disease, have now been captured by researchers. Credit: Illustration: Per Uvdal

MAX IV synchrotron in Lund, Sweden – the strongest of its kind in the world – has been used to produce images that predate the formation of toxic clumps of beta-amyloid, the protein believed to be at the root of Alzheimer’s disease. The unique images appear to contradict a previously unchallenged consensus. Instead of attempting to eliminate beta-amyloid plaques, the researchers now suggest stabilizing the protein.

It is a long-held belief in the scientific community that the beta-amyloid plaques appear almost instantaneously. Hence the term “popcorn plaques...

At left, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma invasive growth, and at right, cancer stem cells (shown in red) in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Credit: Demeng Chen and Cun-Yu Wang/UCLA

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma is a highly invasive form of cancer and frequently spreads to the cervical lymph nodes. Currently, cisplatin is the standard therapeutic drug used for people with HNSCC. Yet, more than 50% of people who take cisplatin demonstrate resistance to the drug, and they experience a recurrence of the cancer. The 5-year survival rates remain sorely low and researchers still don’t understand the underlying mechanisms behind head and neck squamous carcinoma.

Cancer stem cells are known to be responsible for tumor formation and development; they also self-renew and tend to ...

ab115630 at 10ug/ml staining GRASP1 in Human brain (cortex) tissue by immunohistochemistry (FFPE)

Learning and memory depend on cells’ ability to strengthen and weaken circuits in the brain. Now, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine report that a protein involved in recycling other cell proteins plays an important role in this process. Removing this protein reduced mice’s ability to learn and recall information. “We see deficits in learning tasks,” says Richard Huganir, Ph.D., professor and director of the neuroscience department at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The team also found mutations in the gene that produces the recycling protein in a few patients with intellectual disability, and those genetic errors affected neural connections when introduced into mouse brain...