News & HighlightsNews
For different species, different functions for embryonic microRNAs
When evolution has lucked into efficient solutions for life’s most fundamental problems, it adopts them as invaluable family heirlooms, passing them down as one species evolves into another. So it was reasonable to expect that a key regulator of embryonic development — a strand of RNA that sheph...
Scientists develop a tool to study deadly parasite's histone code
n the Japanese art of paper folding, a series of folds can make the same sheet of paper into a ballerina or baby elephant. But try unfolding the baby elephant and making it into a ballerina. It’s like trying to make a neuron from a kidney cell. Epigenetics, it turns out, isn’t much different fro...
New tag could enable more detailed structural studies of mammalian proteins
To say our genes are resourceful is a gross understatement. Through ingenious combinations of a paltry 20 amino acids, the basic building blocks of life, genes engineer all of the tissues and organs that are the marvel of our working bodies. Now scientists are adding to the parsimonious genetic r...
Eric Siggia joins National Academy of Sciences
Eric D. Siggia, whose laboratory is interested in applying informatics approaches to study gene expression and other biological problems, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors given to a scientist or engineer in the United States. Siggia, who is professor...
New sequencing technique to prod benefits from killer venom
King Kong toxin, a component of the venom in some poisonous marine snails, has a peculiar power to go with its peculiar name. When injected into a meek little lobster in a tank full of superiors, the poison induces delusions of grandeur; the little guy starts marching around like he’s king of the...
New clinical study probes how light fights psoriasis
Ultraviolet light is a proven treatment for psoriasis, one of humanity’s oldest known diseases. Sunshine can also beat back the chronic autoimmune disorder of the skin. But explaining light’s therapeutic effects has been difficult. “We know it works, but we want to know how,” says Michelle L...
Levels of cellular stress determines longevity of retinal cells
Stress can be adaptive. It can make you sharper, help you focus and it can even improve your performance. But too much of it can tax cells to the point where they can no longer cope and slowly self-destruct. Scientists at Rockefeller University now show that when the protein-making factory of the...
Ralph Steinman awarded 2009 Albany Medical Center Prize
Ralph M. Steinman, head of Rockefeller University’s Laboratory of Cellular Physiology and Immunology, was named a recipient of this year’s Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research, at $500,000 the largest award in medicine or science in the United States. Steinman, recogni...
$10 million gift from the Simons Foundation to support new initiative with Institute for Advanced Study
The Rockefeller University and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, have established a joint initiative in biology supported by a $10 million gift from the Simons Foundation, a philanthropy established by mathematician and hedge fund manager James Simons, a trustee of The Ro...
University raises $29 million in new gifts
by ZACH VEILLEUX New private gifts totaling over $29 million will allow the university to launch several new programs and will help provide flexible financial support during the current economic downturn. The gifts, ranging in size from $3 million to $10 million, are positive news for the univers...
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