Category Biology/Biotechnology

Acting in the right place at the right time is the key to effective medical treatment with minimal side effects. However, this feat remains difficult to achieve. Biologists and chemists at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) have succeeded in developing a tool that controls the location at which a molecule is activated by a simple pulse of light lasting only a few seconds. Tested on a protein essential for cell division, this system could be applied to other molecules. The potential applications are vast, both in basic research and in improving existing medical treatments, such as those for skin cancer. These results are published in the journal Nature Communications.

Regardless of how it is administered, a medication does not only act on the organ affected but has a systemic effect o...

Newly discovered brain cells count each bite before sending the order to cease eating a meal. Columbia scientists have found specialized neurons in the brains of mice that order the animals to stop eating.

Though many feeding circuits in the brain are known to play a role in monitoring food intake, the neurons in those circuits do not make the final decision to cease eating a meal.

The neurons identified by the Columbia scientists, a new element of these circuits, are located in the brainstem, the oldest part of the vertebrate brain. Their discovery could lead to new treatments for obesity.

“These neurons are unlike any other neuron involved in regulating satiation,” says Alexander Nectow, a physician-scientist at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons...

ETH researchers have developed a new gene switch that can be activated using a commercially available nitroglycerine patch applied to the skin. One day, researchers want to use switches of this kind to trigger cell therapies for various metabolic diseases.

The body regulates its metabolism precisely and continuously, with specialized cells in the pancreas constantly monitoring the amount of sugar in the blood, for example. When this blood sugar level increases after a meal, the body sets a signal cascade in motion in order to bring it back down.

In people suffering from diabetes, this regulatory mechanism no longer works exactly as it should...

Who hasn’t been there? The big meal is over, you’re full, but the craving for sweets remains. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research have now discovered that what we call the “dessert stomach” is rooted in the brain. The same nerve cells that make us feel full after a meal are also responsible for our craving for sweets afterwards.

To find the cause of the “dessert stomach,” the researchers investigated the reaction of mice to sugar and found that completely satiated mice still ate desserts. The paper is published in the journal Science.

Investigations of the brain showed that a group of nerve cells, the so-called POMC neurons, are responsible for this...