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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 calle...

Research Using Mouse Models Reveals A Novel Key Player In The Initiation Of Colon Cancer

Gastric and colorectal cancers account for more than 1 million deaths worldwide every year and several research groups have been working to identify the molecular events that result in the initiation and progression of these tumors. It has been established that interfering with the function of one gene, called Adenomatous Polyposis Coli (APC) has a profound effect on the cells lining the innermos...

Virginia Tech football player uses prototype cast

Virginia Tech's starting running back Cedric Humes was able to play against Boston College despite a broken arm (the ulna bone) thanks, in part, to a prototype composite brace designed for him by Virginia Tech engineers. Brian Love, a professor of materials science and engineering in the College of Engineering, and his biomaterials class met with Mike Goforth, Virginia Tech's director of a...

Scientist measures role of science's coolest player: The snow

What would the Earth be like if one fine day all the snow melted away? Obviously, it would be a much warmer place. But what's interesting is how much warmer, says Stephen Vavrus, an associate scientist at the Center for Climatic Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Working with computer-generated simulations, Vavrus found that in the absence of snow cover, global temperatures w...

A biosensor layered like lasagna

In a mixing of pasta metaphors, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scientists have used electrostatic attraction to layer reactive biological molecules lasagna-like around spaghetti-like carbon nanotubes. This configuration can accommodate a wide range of applications, from ultra-precise blood-sugar monitoring to infectious-agent detection, said Yuehe Lin, who led the research at the D...

Common enzyme is a key player in DNA repair

A quarter century after they discovered it, researchers have identified the job of one of the most common DNA-damage response proteins. The enzyme has puzzled scientists because it is present in nearly every organism, which suggests that it is crucial to life, and yet, in laboratory experiments, its function has remained a mystery. The discovery suggests that the enigmatic enzyme known a...

DNA layer reduces risk of reserve parts being rejected

Dutch researchers Jeroen van den Beucken and John Jansen have given body implants a DNA layer. This layer ensures a better attachment, more rapid recovery of the surrounding tissue and less immune responses. The older we get the more 'reserve-parts' we need. Up until now placing such parts yielded advantages, but also disadvantages such as inflammations and immune responses. Van den Beucken's inv...

Birth rate, competition are major players in hominid extinctions

Modern human mothers are probably happy that they typically have one, maybe two babies at a time, but for early hominids, low birth numbers combined with competition often spelled extinction. "The lineages of primates have some traits that make it hard for them to respond to rapid perturbations in the environment," says Dr. Nina G. Jablonski, professor of anthropology and department head a...

New player in commitment to life as a fat cell

Researchers have discovered a pivotal new player in early events that commit fat cell precursors to becoming full-blown fat, according to a report in the February issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, published by Cell Press. Drugs that block some activities of the enzyme, known as xanthine oxidoreductase (XOR), might therefore offer a novel antiobesity therapy designed to fight fat before it eve...

Brown cancer biologists identify major player in cell growth

When cells go about the business of dividing, they can get sidelined. Maybe there aren't enough nutrients. Maybe there aren't the right signals to resume multiplying. Either way, cells go quiet. What can restart cell division -- the process that drives the development of embryos, the renewal of hair, skin and blood, and the creation of cancer -- is a single transcription factor called GABP...