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Tag: "hurdle" at biology news

Deconstructing brain wiring, one neuron at a time

...tudies have jumped what many believe to be a major hurdle to preparing that chart: identifying all of the connections to a single neuron. In the March 1 issue of the journal Neuron, the researchers describe how they modified the deadly rabies virus, turning it into a tool that can cross the synaptic space ...

Scientists genetically engineer tomatoes with enhanced folate content

...ected by this alteration." And there is another hurdle the researchers must clear. Boosting the production of folate in tomatoes involved increasing the level of another chemical in the plant, pteridine. Little is known about this chemical, which is found in virtually all fruits and vegetables. ...

Scientists clone mice from adult skin stem cells

...cleus from these adult skin stem cells. A main hurdle in nuclear transfer with adult cells has been its efficiency ?out of a hundred attempts, only a handful may succeed ?with reported success rates never reaching into double digits. "The efficiency of nuclear transfer is very low," says Li. "Using puri...

Liposuctioned fat stem cells to repair bodies

...s insists that the transformation is possible. The hurdle lies not with the genes but with a cell’s epigenetic status, the subtle chemical modifications of DNA and its surrounding histone proteins. Epigenetic marks contribute to switching genes on and off, and stem cells rely on them heavily as they divide ...

Ultrathin films deliver DNA as possible gene therapy tool

...not yet a viable therapeutic method. One sizeable hurdle is getting the right genes into the right place at the right time. Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are now developing a tool to tackle this problem. David M. Lynn and his colleagues have created ultrathin, nanoscale films composed ...

New culture method for hepatitis C virus uses primary hepatocytes and patient serum

... of Washington School of Medicine has crossed this hurdle using a human fetal hepatocyte culture system that was previously developed in his lab. Using this system, his group has demonstrated sustained replication and production of virus particles for at least 2 months, with these virus particles able to in...

Cells selectively absorb short nanotubes

...or advanced technology applications. A significant hurdle in outlining the parameters contributing to nanotube toxicity is to prepare well-defined and characterized nanotube samples, as they typically contain a distribution of lengths, diameters, twists and impurities. The team chose to isolate the effec...

Neuroscientists discover new cell type that may help brain maintain memories of smells

...er neurons each Blanes cell might have. The other hurdle relates to difficulty in visualizing the incredibly thin connection between the Blanes cell and its target neurons. Todd Pressler, a doctoral candidate student in Strowbridge's lab and the lead author on the study, took advantage of a new type of ...

Tool developed to silence genes in specific tissues using RNAi

...n Cancer Center say they have jumped a significant hurdle in the use of RNA interference (RNAi), believed by many to be the ultimate tool to both decode the function of individual genes in the human genome and to treat disease. Reporting in the journal Genes and Development, investigators have developed a...

Engineered Stem Cells Show Promise For Sneaking Drugs Into The Brain

...in laboratory animals for up to three months. One hurdle that needs to be overcome before such a technique could be attempted in human patients, says Svendsen, is developing a method to switch transplanted cells on or off and thus control their drug delivery capabilities. Working with engineered cells in c...

Gene therapy for muscular dystrophy fixes frail muscle cells in animal model, Stanford study finds

...al different techniques with variable success. One hurdle is getting genes into muscle cells all over the body. Another is convincing those cells to permanently produce the therapeutic protein made by those genes. The gene therapy technique Rando and postdoctoral fellow Carmen Bertoni, PhD, used was devel...

Researchers devise new technique for creating human stem cells

... state." Melton said that the remaining technical hurdle is figuring out a way to eliminate the embryonic stem cell nucleus in the hybrid cell, causing it to have a normal number of chromosomes. One problem, said Melton, is that the nucleus in stem cells is large, occupying nearly the entire cell. Thus, it...

Doctors closer to using gene analysis to help trauma patients

...ge of experimental clinical settings ?an important hurdle to overcome before the method is routinely used in emergency rooms and intensive care units. In a report published today (March 7) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from eight institutions, including the University ...

Biomarkers isolated from saliva successfully predict oral and breast cancer

...n and pancreatic cancers. "In my mind the biggest hurdle stems from the fact that salivary nucleic acids or protein markers might be influenced by eating, drinking, smoking, diet or oral hygiene," said Wong. "So our goal is to provide the optimized and standardized protocol to assure consistent results." ...

Artifical cornea lets woman blind 20 years see

...d problems with hygiene," says Afshari. The major hurdle right now, according to Dohlman, is the cost of the procedure. "The healthcare system in poor countries cannot afford such devices right now, but in a few decades that situation may be different," he said. It isn't the cost of the device itself that...

Tiny particles could solve billion-dollar problem

...CE into non-toxic components. Cost is the primary hurdle to cleaning up TCE-polluted groundwater. CBEN's team hopes to drive down costs by using every ounce of palladium to maximum efficiency, and by eliminating drilling costs for new wells, construction costs for surface treatment facilities and energy co...

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