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Tag: "ucsd" at biology news

Current human embryonic stem cell lines contaminated UCSD/Salk team finds

Currently available lines of human embryonic.stem cells have been contaminated with a non-human molecule that.compromises their potential therapeutic use in human subjects,.according to research by investigators at the University of California,.San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine and the Salk Institute in La Jolla,.California..In a study published online January 23, 2005 in the journal Nature.Med...

Vital step in cellular migration described by UCSD medical researchers

A vital molecular step in cell migration, the movement of cells within the body during growth, tissue repair and the body's immune response to invading pathogens, has been demonstrated by researchers in the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine. Published in the March 27 online edition of Nature Cell Biology and the journal's upcoming April print edition, the study describ...

UCSD researchers maintain stem cells without contaminated animal feeder layers

The growth and maintenance of human embryonic stem cells in the absence of contaminated animal products has been demonstrated by University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine researchers in the Whittier Institute, La Jolla, California. . Published in the April 2005 issue of the journal Stem Cells, the study shows that laboratory culture media enriched by a human protein called act...

UCSD Discovery Shows How Embryonic Stem Cells Perform 'Quality Control' Inspections

A team led by Johns Hopkins scientists has.found the first clear evidence that the process behind the human immune.system's remarkable ability to recognize and respond to a million.different proteins might have originated from a family of genes whose.only apparent function is to jump around in genetic material.. .essentially cut themselves out of the genetic material, and scientists.have suspecte...

UCSD discovery may help extend life of natural pesticide

A team led by biologists at the University of California, San Diego has discovered a molecule in roundworms that makes them susceptible to Bacillus thuringiensis toxin, or Bt toxin--a pesticide produced by bacteria and widely used by organic farmers and in genetically engineered crops to ward off insect pests. .. . The study, published February 11 in the journal Sc...

UCSD team discovers specialized, rare heart stem cells in newborns

The first evidence of cardiac progenitor cells ?rare, specialized stem cells located in the newborn heart of rats, mice and humans ?has been shown by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine. The cells are capable of differentiation into fully mature heart tissue. .. Called isl1+ cells, these cardiac progenitor cells are stem cells that have been programmed...

UCSD-Salk Team Show Protein’s Gene-Silencing Role In Development of Nervous System

The first evidence that a group of proteins called phosphatases play a key role in the development of the nervous system, has been shown in fruit flies and mice by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, in collaboration with scientists at the Salk Institute, La Jolla, California. The phosphatases are required for maintenance of neural stem cells and for...

UCSD research reveals mechanism involved with type of fatal epilepsy

Researchers at University of California, San Diego (UCSD) have found that Lafora disease, an inherited form of epilepsy that results in death by the age of 30, can be caused by mutations in a gene that regulates the concentration of the protein laforin. These findings are reported in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). . Lafora disease is characterized by...

UCSD medical/bioengineering reseachers show titanium debris satobtage artificial joints

Microscopic titanium particles weaken the bonding of hip, knee, and other joint replacements, according to research published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine and the Jacobs School of Engineering. The team demonstrated that titanium implants are safe in large blocks, but at the microscopic...

Natural tumor suppressor in body discovered by UCSD medical researchers

A natural tumor suppressor that could potentially be turned on in certain cancer cells to prevent the formation of tumors has been discovered by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine. .. Located on chromosome 18 and called PH domain Leucine-rich repeat Protein Phosphatase (PHLPP, pronounced "flip"), the tumor suppressor is described in the April 1, 2005...

UCSD study clarifies insulin's role in blocking release of energy in patients with type II diabetes

Chronically high levels of insulin, as is found in many people with obesity and Type II diabetes, may block specific hormones that trigger energy release into the body, according to researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine. Their findings, which may point to new approaches to developing improved treatment options for the disease, will be published in the Se...

UCSD discovery may provide novel method to generate medically useful proteins

A team led by University of California, San Diego biochemists has discovered the mechanism by which a simple organism can produce 10 trillion varieties of a single protein, a finding that provides a new tool to develop novel drugs. . In the September 18 advance on-line publication of the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, the researchers describe the mechanism by which a virus that...

UCSD study finds anthrax toxins also harmful to fruit flies

Deadly and damaging toxins that allow anthrax to cause disease and death in mammals have similar toxic effects in fruit flies, according to a study conducted by biologists at the University of California, San Diego. . .. Learning how these toxins attack developing and adult tissues is important because it can help scientists...

UCSD biologists find new evidence for one-way evolution

By tracing the 30-million year history of variation in a gene found in plants such as tomatoes and tobacco, biologists at the University of California, San Diego have found new evidence to support an old idea -- that some evolutionary changes are irreversible. . Their study, published this week in an early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offers new...

UCSD team unmasks family of immune system invaders

Like a family of petty criminals gone wrong, researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) were surprised to find that bacterial pathogens found in a number of troublesome diseases are actually related. Not only that, their wrong-doing is carried out by disguising themselves, then hijacking their hosts. . Jack E. Dixon, Ph.D., Dean for Scientific Affairs and Professor of Pharmaco...

UCSD researchers develop 'smart petri dish'

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego have developed what they call a "Smart Petri Dish" that could be used to rapidly screen new drugs for toxic interactions or identify cells in the early stages of cancer circulating through a patient's blood. . .. "One of the big concerns with any potential new drug is its toxicity,"...

UCSD study reveals how plants respond to elevated carbon dioxide

An important source of uncertainty in predictions about global warming is how plants will respond to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Now biologists at the University of California, San Diego have made significant advances toward understanding the mechanism plants use to regulate their carbon dioxide intake. . The study, published in the May 1 early on-line edition of the journal Proceedin...

UCSD researchers create roadmap to integrin activation

Calling it an important technical advance in the study of the complex receptors and pathways of the body's cellular system, researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine have reconstructed the signaling pathways that impact activation of a receptor that is critical to the control of bleeding and to the thrombosis that occurs in heart attacks and strokes. . Thei...

UCSD researchers discover internal compass of immune cell

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine have discovered how neutrophils ?specialized white blood cells that play key roles in inflammation and in the body's immune defense against bacteria ?navigate to sites of infection and inflammation. These findings could potentially lead to new treatments for serious infections and inflammatory diseases in patients....

Two central mysteries in genome inheritance solved at UCSD

The dance of the chromosomes during cell division, first described in the late 1800s and familiar to all high-school students from movies shown in biology classes, has long fascinated biologists. However, the molecular nature of a key component of cell division, the "chromosome-spindle" connection, which is critical for the inheritance of genetic information as cells divide, has remained elusive...

UCSD researchers discover variants of natural tumor suppressor

Building on their 2005 discovery of an enzyme that is a natural tumor suppressor, researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine have now identified two variants of that enzyme which could provide new targets for therapies to treat diabetes, heart and neurological disease. The findings, by Alexandra C. Newton, Ph.D., UCSD professor of pharmacology, and colleague...