Victoria, Australia (Scicasts) – Melbourne researchers have identified an immune protein that has the potential to stop or reverse the development of type 1 diabetes in its early stages, before insulin-producing cells have been destroyed. [Video]
Kansas City, MA (Scicasts) – A small ensemble of musicians can produce an infinite number of melodies, harmonies and rhythms. So too, do a handful of workhorse signalling pathways that interact to construct multiple structures that comprise the vertebrate body.
Montreal, Quebec, Canada (Scicasts) – McGill University researchers have unlocked a new door to developing drugs to slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease. [Video]
Vienna, Austria (Scicasts) – Every cell of our body is separated from its environment by a lipid bilayer. In order to maintain their biological function and to transduce signals, special proteins, so called ion channels, are embedded in the membrane.
La Jolla, CA (Scicasts) – Solving the structure of a critical human molecule involved in cancer, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found what they call a good example of structural conservation―dissimilar genes that keep very similar shapes.
Jupiter, FL (Scicasts) – Proteins, the workhorses of the body, can have more than one function, but they often need to be very specific in their action or they create cellular havoc, possibly leading to disease.
Buffalo, NY (Scicasts) – A potential new treatment strategy for patients with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease is on the horizon, thanks to research by neuroscientists now at the University at Buffalo’s Hunter James Kelly Research Institute and their colleagues in Italy and England.
Braunschweig, Germany (Scicasts) – The protein C4BP is similar to a spider in its spatial form with eight "arms". The structure of the "spider body" has recently been described in detail by researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig and the Technische Universität Darmstadt.
La Jolla, CA (Scicasts) – Biologists at UC San Diego have identified eight genes never before suspected to play a role in wound healing that are called into action near the areas where wounds occur.
Galveston, TX (Scicasts) – Ever since the appetite-regulation hormone called leptin was discovered in 1994, scientists have sought to understand the mechanisms that control its action.
La Jolla, CA (Scicasts) – Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have made a counterintuitive finding that may lead to new ways to clear persistent infection that is the hallmark of such diseases as AIDS, hepatitis B and hepatitis C.
Atlanta, GA (Scicasts) – Researchers at Emory Vaccine Center have demonstrated that follicular helper T cells, important for generating potent antibodies, maintain their character even after a viral infection is over.
Chapel Hill, NC (Scicasts) – Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have "rationally rewired" some of the cell's smallest components to create proteins that can be switched on or off by command.
Houston, TX (Scicasts) – Rice University researchers have found an unexpected link between a protein that triggers the formation of blood clots and other proteins that are essential for the body's immune system.
Cambridge, MA (Scicasts) – Most commonly associated with such maladies as "mad cow disease" and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, prions are increasingly recognized for their ability to induce potentially beneficial traits in a variety of organisms, yeast chief among them.
La Jolla, CA (Scicasts) – What is it about the extra chromosome inherited in Down syndrome―chromosome 21―that alters brain and body development?
Houston, TX (Scicasts) – A key building block of life, actin is one of the most abundant and highly conserved proteins in eukaryotic cells.