Skip to main content
Displaying 132 of 2909 articles.
Some infectious diseases are particularly difficult to treat because of their ability to evade the immune system. One such illness, African sleeping sickness, is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma brucei, transmitted by the tsetse fly, and is fatal if left untreated. The trypanosome parasite is t...

For years, scientists have struggled to find a way to block a protein known to play an important role in many cancers. The protein, STAT3, acts as a transcription factor—it performs the crucial task of helping convert DNA into the RNA instructions used to make new proteins. But when overly acti...

Sometimes, the molecules that make up life exhibit strange behavior. For instance, in simple organisms such as yeast, when genetic material becomes damaged, the affected DNA strands increase their motion, waving about inside the cell like a sail unfurled. Over the years, scientists have seen more...

  Researchers at Brookhaven lab, Stony Brook and Rockefeller universities make new discoveries about double helix copying   "In Manhattan, Michael O'Donnell, who heads Rockefeller's Laboratory of DNA Replication, said the finding will change how students understand DNA replication. 'It's a pa...

DNA replication is essential to all life, yet many basic mechanisms in that process remain unknown to scientists. The structure of the replisome—a block of proteins responsible for unwinding the DNA helix and then creating duplicate helices for cell division—is one such mystery. Now, for the ...

Loud noise, trauma, infections, plain old aging—many things can destroy hair cells, the delicate sensors of balance and sound within the inner ear. And once these sensors are gone, that’s it; the delicate hair cells don’t grow back in humans, leading to hearing loss and problems with balance. ...

Ribosomes, the molecular factories that produce all the proteins a cell needs to grow and function, are themselves made up of many different proteins and four RNAs. And just as an assembly line must be built before it can manufacture cars, these tiny factories must be constructed before they can ...

New treatment options are badly needed for acute myeloid leukemia, a relatively rare form of cancer. The malignancy begins in the bone marrow, and from there can spread rapidly to the bloodstream, depriving the body of the essential blood cells that carry oxygen and fight infections. Now, new wor...

by Wynne Parry, Science Writer The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust has awarded a new three-year, $15-million grant to The Rockefeller University to help support the interdisciplinary Center for Basic and Translational Research on Disorders of the Digestive System. Established in 2...

Congratulations to our latest award winners: Hani Goodarzi has been named a Blavatnik Regional Awards Winner in the life sciences. Given by the Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Science, the award honors outstanding postdocs in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Winners ...

Within the brain, some neurons fire off hundreds of signals per second, and after ramping up for such a barrage, they need to relax and reset. A particular type of ion channel helps bring them down, ensuring these cells don’t get overstimulated—a state that potentially can lead to severe epilept...

Many millions of times per day, football-shaped structures called mitotic spindles form within the body’s cells as they prepare to divide. The process is routine but mysterious, as the micro-mechanics involved are not yet well understood. In research published October 1 in Developmental Cell, sci...