News & HighlightsNews
Nobel laureate George E. Palade, 95
by TALLEY HENNING BROWN At the presentation of his Nobel Prize in 1974, George Emil Palade was described as “largely responsible for the creation of modern cell biology.” The man whose research played a crucial part in bringing electron microscopy to the study of biological cells was an integ...
Milestones
Awarded: Jan L. Breslow, the 2008 Senior Scholar in Aging Award from The Ellison Medical Foundation, for a project to determine the link between the nuclear hormone receptor PXR and aging processes. Dr. Breslow is head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism. Michela Di Virgilio ...
An enzyme that mutates antibodies also targets a cancer-causing oncogene
The human immune system is in a perpetual state of self-experimentation. It expertly mutates and shuffles the DNA of its own cells to evolve new defenses against the vast array of microbes that try to invade our bodies. But when the genetic experiment goes awry, the result can be a deadly cancer....
Scientists drill holes through deadly bacteria's Kevlar-like hide
To protect themselves from human defenses, disease-causing bacteria have evolved a cell wall made from a nearly impenetrable tangle of tightly woven strands. That’s made it difficult for scientists to see what goes on inside these potentially deadly organisms. But that era is now over. In researc...
Structure of a virulent pathogen revealed
Like high-profile politicians, pathogenic bacteria dispatch advance teams to make way for their arrival. But these bacterial agents don’t just secure a safe passage, as a Secret Service detail might do. Rather they are teams of molecules that bacteria inject into cells they want to colonize, sent...
Research identifies cell-receptor as target for anti-inflammatory immune response
Invading pathogens provoke a series of molecular heroics that, when successful, muster an army of antibodies to neutralize the threat. Like with any close-quarter combat, however, an aggressive immune response runs the risk of friendly fire accidents. For the last decade, immunologists have inten...
Tom Muir, Paul Nurse honored at Science and the City Gala
The New York Academy of Sciences has honored Rockefeller University professor Tom W. Muir with a Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists, and also presented Rockefeller president Paul Nurse with a Science and the City Award for Outstanding Accomplishments in New York City. The awards were given at t...
Breakthrough in cell-type analysis offers new way to study development and disease
Like skilled assassins, many diseases seem to know exactly what types of cells to attack. While decimating one cadre of cells, diseases will inexplicably spare a seemingly identical group of neighbors. What makes cells vulnerable or not depends largely on the kinds and amounts of proteins they pr...
Fatty diet during pregnancy produces new neurons to fetal brain
A study in rats shows that exposure to a high-fat diet during pregnancy produces permanent changes in the offspring’s brain that lead to overeating and obesity early in life, according to new research by Rockefeller University scientists. This surprising finding, reported in the November 12 issue...
Scientists confirm a molecular clipping mechanism behind stem cell development
Stem cells don’t just become a part of the liver or the brain in a flash; it takes a complex molecular choreography and requires that specific genes be switched on and off at specific times. Some of these genes are regulated through a process by which proteins in the cell nucleus, called histones...
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