A UA-led team has found that a protein from a new gene can fold like more ancient proteins, contrary to what had been believed.
A yeast protein that evolved from scratch can fold into a three-dimensional shape — contrary to the general understanding of young proteins — according to new research led by the University of Arizona. (more…)
Exogen can check the DNA health not only of an individual but that of an entire region, thus answering questions on the impact of environmental events.
Currently if a scientist or doctor wanted to measure the level of a person’s DNA damage, they would have to look at some cells in a fluorescent microscope and manually count the number of DNA breaks. This kind of counting is labor-intensive, time-consuming, and a highly subjective process. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientist Sylvain Costes, who has spent over a decade studying the effects of low-dose radiation on cellular processes, came up with a way to automate the job using a proprietary algorithm and a machine to scan specimens and objectively score the damaged DNA. (more…)
Berkeley Lab bioscientists and their colleagues decipher a far-reaching problem in computer simulations
Because modern computers have to depict the real world with digital representations of numbers instead of physical analogues, to simulate the continuous passage of time they have to digitize time into small slices. This kind of simulation is essential in disciplines from medical and biological research, to new materials, to fundamental considerations of quantum mechanics, and the fact that it inevitably introduces errors is an ongoing problem for scientists.
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have now identified and characterized the source of tenacious errors and come up with a way to separate the realistic aspects of a simulation from the artifacts of the computer method. The research was done by David Sivak and his advisor Gavin Crooks in Berkeley Lab’s Physical Biosciences Division and John Chodera, a colleague at the California Institute of Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) at the University of California at Berkeley. The three report their results in Physical Review X. (more…)
Berkeley Lab research could lead to new ways to ID women who have higher risk of breast cancer from low-dose radiation
Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have identified tissue mechanisms that may influence a woman’s susceptibility or resistance to breast cancer after exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation, such as the levels used in full-body CT scans and radiotherapy.
The research could lead to new ways to identify women who have higher or lower risks of breast cancer from low-dose radiation. Such a predictive tool could help guide the treatment of cancer patients who may be better served by non-radiation therapies. (more…)
A summer of research at Berkeley Lab gives high school teachers a jump start on science.
High school science teachers face a perennial problem: how to make science real and exciting to their students. But for Berkeley High School teacher Allen Boltz, who spent eight weeks at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory working in a research lab, he will be returning to his classroom this fall a near rock star.
“This experience gives a lot of credibility to the teaching profession,” he said. “To my students, me doing research here would be the equivalent to their PE teacher being a professional athlete.” (more…)
*Berkeley Researchers Provide Detailed Look at Proteasome’s Regulatory Particle*
Important new information on one of the most critical protein machines in living cells has been reported by a team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley. The researchers have provided the most detailed look ever at the “regulatory particle” used by the protein machines known as proteasomes to identify and degrade proteins that have been marked for destruction. The activities controlled by this regulatory particle are critical to the quality control of cellular proteins, as well as a broad range of vital biochemical processes, including transcription, DNA repair and the immune defense system. (more…)
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — When a movie character says, “It’s too quiet,” that’s usually a sign something bad may happen.
Now, University of Florida researchers have discovered that when variations of a certain protein in our cells are too quiet, it may add to the risk that someone will develop lung cancer. When scientists restored the protein to its normal, active self, its cancer-inhibiting properties reappeared. (more…)
*Discovery gives insight into the way cells protect their own genetic material*
In a groundbreaking study, U of T researchers including Professors Daniel Durocher, Anne‐Claude Gingras and Frank Sicheri have uncovered a protein called OTUB1 that blocks DNA damage in the cell—a discovery that may lead to the development of strategies to improve some cancer therapies.
