Alk

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

Currently available lines of human embryonicstem cells have been contaminated with a non-human molecule thatcompromises 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 NatureMed...

U-M scientist to talk about tissue engineering at AAAS

Scientists have a pretty good handle on how to teach human cells to do tricks in a laboratory---things like getting soft cells from the mouth's lining to form bone. But in the real world, accomplishing such feats is more complex. Regenerating the jaw bone of a person undergoing radiation therapy for cancer means managing the constant bacteria bath of a human mouth as well as compensating...

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...

Survey reveals women and doctors aren't talking about HPV

Eighty-eight percent of women rely on their healthcare providers to learn about gynecological issues, yet only 19 percent said their doctor has talked to them about cervical cancer and its cause - the human papillomavirus (HPV) - according to a new survey released by the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals (ARHP). HPV is extremely common, affecting an estimated 80 percent of sexually...

Penn study finds direct role for glial cells in brain cross-talk

Findings may help elucidate mechanisms of wake-sleep transitions and epileptic seizures Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have demonstrated that star-shaped glial cells in the brain called astrocytes are directly involved in regulating communication between neurons. A central finding of the study is that astrocytes modulate the level of a signaling molecule...

Researchers get neurons and silicon talking

The ultimate applications are potentially limitless. In the long term it will possibly enable the creation of very sophisticated neural prostheses to combat neurological disorders. What's more, it could allow the creation of organic computers that use living neurons as their CPU. Those applications are potentially decades away, but in the much nearer term the new technology could enable ve...

Salk researchers make fast strides towards understanding how our body controls walking

Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have identified an important circuit in the spinal cord that controls the speed with which our leg muscles contract and relax. Their findings mark an important milestone in understanding the neural circuitry that coordinates walking movements - one of the main obstacles in developing new treatments for spinal cord injuries. "Knowing...

In a technical tour de force, Salk scientists take a global view of the epigenome

A collaboration between researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the University of California at Los Angeles captured the genome-wide DNA methylation pattern of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana - the "laboratory rat" of the plant world - in one big sweep. "In a single experiment we recapitulated 20 years worth of anecdotal findings and then some," says senior author Jos...

Salk and Stanford teams join forces to reveal two paths of neurodegeneration

Wiring the developing brain is like creating a topiary garden. Shrubs don't automatically assume the shape of ornamental elephants, and neither do immature nerve cells immediately recognize the "right" target cell. Abundant foliage, either vegetal or neuronal, must first sprout and then be sculpted into an ordered structure. Neurons extend fibers called axons to target cells in an exuberan...

Stimulation of the semicircular canals can artificially control human walking and balance

By applying electrical currents across the heads of people while they walk, researchers have improved our understanding of how our vestibular system helps us maintain upright posture; at the same time, the researchers found that the stimulus could be applied in a way that allowed a person who was walking straight ahead to be steered by "remote control" without her balance being affected. The find...

Salk scientists get to the root of plant cell fate

When Robert Burns compared his love to a red, red rose, he definitely wasn't referring to a topless mutant. That's because rather than being topped by a lovely, fragrant bloom, a rose mutant in the gene known as TOPLESS would be crowned by a homely second root. Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies studying the frumpy wild mustard plant Arabidopsis thaliana rather than t...

Salk scientists untangle steroid hormone signaling in plants

When given extra shots of the plant steroid brassinolide, plants "pump up" like major league baseball players do on steroids. Tracing brassinolide's signal deep into the cell's nucleus, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have unraveled how the growth-boosting hormone accomplishes its job at the molecular level. The Salk researchers, led by Joanne Chory, a professor i...

Trotting with emus to walk with dinosaurs

One way to make sense of 165-million-year-old dino tracks may be to hang out with emus, say paleontologists studying thousands of dinosaur footprints at the Red Gulch Dinosaur Tracksite in northern Wyoming. Because they are about the same size, walk on two legs and have similar feet, emus turn out to be the best modern version of the enigmatic reptiles that once trotted along a long-lost coastlin...

UGA scientists unravel 'molecular inch-worm' structure of walking-pneumonia bacterium

Researchers at the University of Georgia, using glow-in-the-dark proteins and microcinematography, have helped unravel the development and function of a complex organelle in the bacterium that causes "walking pneumonia." The researchers have described in new, precise detail the unique cell extension that forms on one end of the bacterium Mycoplasma pneumoniae. This structure, called a "ter...

Walking not enough for significant exercise benefits

Walking is a popular form of exercise, but may not be enough to experience significant health benefits, a University of Alberta study shows. "Generally, low-intensity activity such as walking alone is not likely going to give anybody marked health benefits compared to programs that occasionally elevate the intensity," said Dr. Vicki Harber, lead author on the Health First study, which was...

Walking molecule now carries packages

A research team, led by UC Riverside's Ludwig Bartels, was the first to design a molecule that can move in a straight line on a flat surface. Now this team has found a way to attach cargo: two CO2 molecules, making the nano-walker a molecule carrier. "This i...

When your brain talks, your muscles don't always listen

Have your neurons been shouting at your muscles again? It happens, you know. "As a result of age-re...

Brain's white matter -- More 'talkative' than once thought

Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered to their surprise that nerves in the mammalian brain’s white matter do more than just ferry information between different brain regions, but in fact process information the way gray matter cells do. The discovery in mouse cells, outlined in the cover story of the March issue of Nature Neuroscience, shows that brain cells “talk?with each other in mor...

Fuel from fiber -- Pretreatment can put corn stalks, trees in your car's tank

"Put a tree in your tank." Fuel companies aren't touting that slogan. At least not yet. Dale is internationally known for his 30 years of research on maki...

Salk scientists hammer out a pathway that promotes muscle cell survival in mice

Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have identified an enzyme that pumps up a cell’s ability to maintain healthy muscle and restores normal muscle function in genetically engineered mice with weak muscles. The study, published online in Nature Medicine, is the first to explore the part this enzyme plays in a cascade of events triggered by exercise-induced hormones and other si...

Lessons from the orangutans: Upright walking may have begun in the trees

, published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society. </p...