News & HighlightsNews
Modular structure enables TRCF protein to both halt transcription and repair DNA
veryone needs a little push now and then. Even proteins. In new research from Seth Darst’s lab at Rockefeller University, the structure of one of the pushiest proteins in bacteria is finally brought to light. Among the most stable complexes in a cell is the attachment between DNA and RNA polymera...
Damaged tumor suppressor plays major role in lymphoma development
Scientists have known for years that chromosomal translocations — abnormalities in which a piece of one chromosome breaks off and fuses to another — lead to a type of blood cancer called lymphoma, but little was known about how cells accumulate translocations or defend themselves against them. N...
PLD1 protein is implicated in Alzheimer's brain damage
Most current Alzheimer’s drugs target molecules responsible for memory formation. But while helpful at slowing and even reversing memory loss, this approach doesn’t address the root of the problem: plaques that build amid brain cells, causing them to weaken and die. In back-to-back papers pub...
Genetic studies in mice yield clues to how heart disease is inherited
Heart disease tends to run in families, and scientists have long known that genetics play an important role. Now, new research in mice, from the laboratory of Rockefeller’s Jan L. Breslow, shows that the genetics of heart disease are more complicated than previously thought. In a study led by Dan...
Newly discovered immune cell partially responsible for psoriasis
In a discovery that may help shape new treatments for psoriasis, scientists at Rockefeller University have found a new type of immune cell that may be critical in producing inflammation and tissue damage in the skin. Psoriasis occurs when white blood cells react to an unknown trigger and inappro...
'Geneless' enzyme is key to how bacteria intack
To infect, bacteria must first stick. Several proteins on their cell wall surface are there simply to attach themselves to the surrounding tissues of their hosts, such as the warm, moist, inviting ones at the back of your throat. Now new research from Sung Lee and Vincent Fischetti in Rockefeller...
For insect cells, like mouse cells, one protein decides between life and death
Cells are given life by mitochondria, an organelle that provides them with all the energy they need. But while mitochondria giveth, they also taketh away — when a cell’s time is up, they release molecules that start a cascade ending in death. At least that’s how it works in humans, mice and ot...
'Hitchhiking' chromosomes yield new theory of cell division
From the moment the cell was discovered, scientists have been dissecting the methodical, multi-step process by which they duplicate themselves. This week, Rockefeller researchers studying one component of this process — how a cell’s chromosomes move in preparation for division — announce a dis...
Study shows a fundamental difference between how insects, mammals detect odors
When smelling their favorite foods, both humans and insects usually go with their instinct and try to find the source. However, according to new research by Leslie Vosshall and colleagues at Rockefeller University, when it comes to smell, that’s about the only thing that they have in common. Voss...
'U.S. biomedical research under seige,' says Rockefeller University president Paul Nurse
In an editorial published this week in one of the nation’s leading biomedical journals, Cell, Rockefeller University President Paul Nurse suggests that the scientific research enterprise in the United States is in danger of suffering major damage as a result of stagnated funding and the failure o...
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