Vaccine blocks malaria transmission in lab experiments

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute have for the first time produced a malarial protein (Pfs48/45) in the proper conformation and quantity to generate a significant immune response in mice and non-human primates for use in a potential transmission-blocking vaccine. Antibodi...

New lab test offers better prediction of HIV microbicide safety

July 9, 2009 (BRONX, NY) Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have devised a laboratory test for predicting whether microbicides against HIV are safe for human use. The researchers have also discovered why several supposedly "safe" microbicides made women more ...

Xie Lab uncovers molecular machinery related to stem cell fate

The Stowers Institute's Xie Lab has revealed how the BAM protein affects germline stem cell differentiation and how it is involved in regulating the quality of stem cells through intercellular competition. The work was published today by PNAS Early Edition. Maintaining the proper balance betw...

Story tips from the Departments of Energy's Oak Ridge National Lab -- March 2009

MATERIALS -- Entering a new domain . . . With the aid of a one-of-a-kind instrument at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, scientists have made a series of discoveries that could open new pathways for nanoscale electronics. The study, published in Nature ...

Cutting-edge amfAR grants fight HIV/AIDS in the lab and on the phone

NEW YORK, February 27, 2009 Most parents of teenage children have experienced frustration at their sons' and daughters' obsession with text messaging. But what if this ubiquitous technology could be used to save lives? At the University of Dar es Salaam in the East African nation of Tanzania, a c...

New lab evidence suggests preventive effect of herbal supplement in prostate cancer

PHILADELPHIA DHEA is a natural circulating hormone and the body's production of it decreases with age. Men take DHEA as an over-the-counter supplement because it has been suggested that DHEA can reverse aging or have anabolic effects since it can be metabolized in the body to androgens. Increased...

Researchers to use K-State's BSL-3 Lab for $1 million study of fungus threatening wheat crops

MANHATTAN -- Kansas is lucky that a devastating wheat fungus isn't threatening the state's crops yet. Researchers at Kansas State University are getting $1 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to keep it that way. Barbara Valent, university distinguished professor of plant pathology,...

Krumlauf Lab demonstrates modulation of gene expression by protein coding regions

A research team at the Stowers Institute has discovered how the expression of one of the Hox master control genes is regulated in a specific segment of the developing brain. The findings provide important insight into how and where the brain develops some of its unique and important structures. ...

Stowers Institute's Baumann Lab identifies key step in maturation pathway of telomerase

The Stowers Institute's Baumann Lab has discovered an important step in the maturation pathway of telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes the sequences that are lost at chromosome ends with every cell division. The findings were published today in the Advance Online Publication of Nature . Te...

Stowers Institute's Linheng Li Lab expands understanding of bone marrow stem cell niche

The Stowers Institute's Linheng Li Lab has identified the precise location of the bone marrow stem cell niche. The findings were published today in the Advance Online Publication of Nature . The Linheng Li Lab collaborated with several of the Institute's support facilities to develop a new te...

Stowers Institute's Workman Lab discovers novel histone demethylase protein complex

The Stowers Institute's Workman Lab has discovered a novel histone demethylase protein complex characterized in work published today in Molecular Cell . The Histone H3 protein is an important component of chromatin, the packing material wrapping up chromosomal DNA and preventing unwanted tra...

Rong Li Lab offers insight into adaptive ability of cells

The Stowers Institute's Rong Li Lab has published findings that shed light on the ability of cells to adapt to disruptions to their basic division machineries findings that may help explain how cancer cells elude the body's natural defense mechanisms or chemotherapy treatment. The work was publis...

Moving new technologies from the lab to the marketplace

Judith Sheft, associate vice president for technology development at NJIT, has been awarded funds from the New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology to assist faculty researchers with the most promising patentable inventions with funding grants of up to $50,000. The money, known as Gap gran...

Children's Hospital scientists achieve repair of injured heart muscle in lab tests of stem cells

Researchers at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC have been able to effectively repair damaged heart muscle in an animal model using a novel population of stem cells they discovered that is derived from human skeletal muscle tissue. The research team led by Johnny Huard, PhD transplant...

New lab manual focuses on essential methods for purifying and characterizing proteins

COLD SPRING HARBOR, N.Y. (Oct. 7, 2008) A new, user-friendly laboratory manual for protein purification and analysis has just been released by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. Designed for routine, day-to-day use in the laboratory, it includes essential step-wise protocols as well as backg...

Rong Li Lab probes mechanism of asymmetry in meiotic cell division

The Stowers Institute's Rong Li Lab has characterized a mechanism that allows for asymmetrical cell division during meiosis in oocytes. By tracking chromosome movement in live mouse oocytes, the team discovered that chromosomes can recruit to their vicinity a protein called formin-2. This protein ...

Conaway Lab identifies novel mechanism for regulation of gene expression

The Stowers Institute's Conaway Lab has demonstrated that an enzyme called Uch37 is kept in check when it is part of a human chromatin remodeling complex, INO80. The results were published in today's issue of Molecular Cell . Uch37 is a "deubiquitinating enzyme" that can remove protein tags (...

Rice lab finds molecular clues to Wilson disease

HOUSTON -- Aug. 19, 2008 -- Using a combination of computer simulations and cutting-edge lab experiments, physical biochemists at Rice University have discovered how a small genetic mutation -- which is known to cause Wilson disease -- subtly changes the structure of a large, complex protein that ...

FSU, Magnet Lab researchers license critical petroleum data

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- As gas prices soar, scientists at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University are marketing research that will enable petroleum companies to locate, analyze and process crude oil much faster, cheaper and more accurately. Alan G. Marshall, a giant...

Wearable Sensors Conceived at Harvard Robotics Lab Measure Hand Forces

FingerTPS(TM) Put Comfortable Tactile Sensors at Your Fingertips, Literally LOS ANGELES, July 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Pressure Profile Systems, Inc. (PPS) today announces their innovative new wireless FingerTPS(TM) (Finger Tactile Pressure Sensing) system for immediate sale worldwide. FingerTPS sensor...

Stowers Institute's Shilatifard Lab identifies new role for factor critical to transcription

The Stowers Institute's Shilatifard Lab has identified a new role for the elongation factor ELL in gene transcription by RNA polymerase II (Pol II) the enzyme that synthesizes messenger RNA to carry genetic information from DNA to the protein-synthesizing machinery of the cell. Precise contro...

Rong Li Lab identifies new role of inflammatory protein in PKD and a possible treatment

The Stowers Institute's Rong Li Lab has discovered that a protein previously shown to have a role in inflammation may also have a role in the formation of cysts in Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease (ADPKD) one of the most common life-threatening genetic diseases and has shown that a ...

Magnet Lab researchers make observing cell functions easier

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Now that the genome (DNA) of humans and many other organisms have been sequenced, biologists are turning their attention to discovering how the many thousands of structural and control genes -- the worker bees of living cells that can turn genes on and off -- function. To d...

Iowa State, ConocoPhillips and National Renewable Energy Lab to cooperate on biofuels research

AMES, Iowa; HOUSTON; and GOLDEN, Colo. Iowa State University, ConocoPhillips and the U.S. Department of Energys National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have reached a Memorandum of Understanding to identify promising cellulosic biomass conversion technologies over the near, mid- and long-term...

Software developed by Boston College lab delivers speed and accuracy to genome research

CHESTNUT HILL, MA It took a global corps of scientists approximately $500 million and 13 years to identify the more than 35,000 genes of the human genome. Five years later, Boston College Biologist Gabor Marth and his research team have developed software that can analyze half a million DNA seque...

Workman Lab characterizes novel regulator of chromosome function

The Stowers Institute's Workman Lab has shed new light on a novel histone acetyltransferase protein complex called ATAC. Acetyltransferases are enzymes that introduce a new acetyl functional group into histone proteins, a process by which all chromosome functions are controlled. The findings ...

USC awarded $3.9M for lab under the sea

Think of bacteria eating rock. Now think of bacteria eating rock below the ocean floor. How about experimenting on bacteria in that rock 15,000 feet underwater" With a $3.9 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, USC researcher Katrina Edwards will lead a first-of-its-kind dri...

Trainor Lab characterizes gene essential for prenatal development of nervous system

The Stowers Institutes Trainor Lab has demonstrated the role of a gene important to the embryonic development of the nervous system, a process that requires coordination of differentiation of immature neural cells with the cycle of cell division that increases their numbers. Until now, the mechani...

Xie Lab characterizes niche control of stem cell function

The Stowers Institutes Xie Lab has published findings that begin to characterize the poorly understood interaction among stem cells within their cellular microenvironment, called a niche. The findings appear in todays issue of Cell Stem Cell. The Xie Lab demonstrated that differentiation-...

Baumann lab identifies elusive telomere RNA subunit in single cell model

The Stowers Institutes Baumann Lab has identified the long-sought telomerase RNA gene in a single-cell research model. Their findings have been posted to the Web site of the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology and will appear in a future print edition. Chromosomes shorten with every ...

Pourquié lab links beta-catenin gradient to process of somite formation

The Stowers Institutes Pourqui Lab has demonstrated the importance of Beta-catenin, a key component of the Wnt-signaling pathway in the process of somite formation. The work has been published on the Web site of Nature Cell Biology and will appear in a future print issued. It was conducted using ...

Shilatifard Lab sheds light on molecular machinery required for translation of histone crosstalk

The Stowers Institutes Shilatifard Lab has published findings that shed light on the molecular machinery required for the translation of histone crosstalk, or communication between histones. Published in todays issue of Cell, Histone Crosstalk between H2B Monoubiquitination and H3 Methylation...

Rong Li Lab reports protein interactions of MAP kinase signaling pathway

The Stowers Institutes Rong Li Lab, in collaboration with the Institutes Imaging Center, has achieved a quantitative in vivo measurement of the dynamic protein-protein interactions in the mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase cascade signaling pathway, which is critical to growth and differentiat...

Stowers Institute's Hawley Lab identifies factors responsible for restart of meiotic cycle

The Stowers Institutes Hawley Lab has identified a pair of proteins that work in concert to restart the meiotic cycle of oocytes following a natural period of dormancy. The Hawley Lab has described the dual actions of these two proteins as the Sleeping Beauty Kiss that awakens the long-dorman...

Earlier bites by uninfected mosquitoes boost West Nile deaths in lab mice

GALVESTON, Texas Theres one more reason to try to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes, scientists have discovered: bites from mosquitoes that arent infected by the West Nile virus may make the disease worse in people who acquire it later from West Nile-infected mosquitoes. Researchers from the Un...

Pourquie Lab demonstrates role of growth factor in vertebrae formation

The Stowers Institutes Pourqui Lab has demonstrated the role of fibroblast growth factor (FGF) in the embryonic process of somitogenesis, an event required for vertebrae formation, in a paper posted to the Web site of the journal Development. The paper will appear in the November print issue of th...

Argonne National Lab acquires first SiCortex SC5832

SiCortex, the first company to engineer a Linux cluster from the silicon up, today announced that the first production model of an SC5832, its flagship 5.8 teraflop system, will be installed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Illinois. The lab and its commu...

Stowers Institute's Xie Lab demonstrates dual intrinsic and extrinsic control of stem cell aging

The Stowers Institutes Xie Lab has published recent findings that reveal some of the factors underlying the aging of stem cells. The paper, Stem Cell Aging is Controlled both Intrinsically and Extrinsically in the Drosophila Ovary, was published in the Oct. 11 issue of Cell Stem Cell. Lei...

K-State Veterinary Lab routinely tests for bluetongue virus

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- Livestock producers in the United States should be cautious but not overly fearful of bluetongue virus, according to a veterinary laboratory director at Kansas State University. Gary Anderson, director of the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at K-State, said strains of the vi...

Straw bale house survives violent shaking at earthquake lab

RENO, Nev. It huffed and puffed, but the 82-ton-force, earthquake-simulation shake table could not knock down the straw house designed and built by University of Nevada, Reno alumna and civil engineer Darcey Donovan. The full-scale, 14-by-14-foot straw house, complete with gravel foundation a...