News & HighlightsNews
Single gene may defend bacteria from antibiotics and infection
Bacteria have two major enemies: antibiotic drugs and bacteriophage viruses, which infect and kill them. The two disparate threats may have something in common. New research from Rockefeller University has found that certain bacteria have gained a gene that protects them from both toxic drugs and...
An ancient retrovirus is resurrected
Retroviruses have been around longer than humanity itself. In fact, the best-known family member, HIV, is a relative youngster, with its first known human infections occurring sometime in the mid-20th century. But although many retroviruses went extinct hundreds of thousands or millions of years ...
Phospholipids in the cell membrane help regulate ion channels
Though the cell membrane is a protective barrier, it also plays a role in letting some foreign material in — via ion channels that dot the cell’s surface. Now new research from the Nobel Prize-winning laboratory that first solved the atomic structure of several such channels shows that their fun...
A chemotherapy drug packs a one-two punch
Cancer can be wily, and those who treat the disease have amassed a wide array of weapons with which to fight it and kill tumors. Radiation therapy and various forms of chemotherapy were all thought to be separate but equal treatments. Now, however, new research is beginning to show that it’s not ...
New Fanconi anemia gene ID'd
An international team of researchers has uncovered the 13th gene to be associated with Fanconi anemia, a rare genetic disease linked to several types of cancer. The identification of the gene helps explain why some young patients develop early and lethal cancer, and also why relatives of these pa...
Chromosome linked to cholesterol absorption
Normal mice don’t have to worry about their cholesterol, but mice from Jan Breslow’s lab at Rockefeller University do. By genetically altering mice to isolate genes that are important for the regulation of cholesterol levels, scientists are helping unravel the genetics of heart disease. His late...
Scientists clone mice from adult skin stem cells
The potential of stem cells has so far gone largely untapped, despite the great promise that stem cells hold. But new research from Rockefeller University now shows that adult stem cells taken from skin can be used to clone mice using a procedure called nuclear transfer. Embryonic stem cells have...
Analysis of Chinese AIDs epidemic shows surprising patterns
The mountainous Chinese province of Yunnan is tucked into the country’s southwest corner, a scenic region that borders Burma, Laos and Vietnam. The province shares its rugged topography with the surrounding countries, but it shares a less favorable trait as well: a growing AIDS epidemic, driven b...
With no plan for DNA replication, cells depend on random selection
Each time a human cell divides it has to replicate three billion base pairs of DNA. All of the cell’s DNA must be copied once, but not more than once, within a very short period of time. But new research in yeast from Rockefeller University shows that instead of going about DNA replication in an ...
First-ever images of a living immune structure shows B cells in action
When an infection strikes, B cells act as the immune system’s tag-and-release team, hunting down the invading pathogen with incredible accuracy and labeling it with antibodies that inform other immune cells to destroy it. B cells are taught to recognize their prey inside tiny structures called ge...
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