A new virus that causes severe breathing distress and kidney failure elicits a distinctive airway cell response to allow it to multiply. Scientists studying the Human Coronavirus-Erasmus Medical Center, which first appeared April 2012 in the Middle East, have discovered helpful details about its stronghold tactics.
Their findings predict that certain currently available compounds might treat the infection. These could act not by killing the virus directly but by keeping lung cells from being forced to create a hospitable environment for the virus to reproduce. The researchers caution that their lab and computer predictions would need to be tested to see if the drugs work clinically. (more…)
Dedicated, passionate and energetic, M.D./Ph.D. student Angel Byrd has earned many accolades and research opportunities. But she only recently won a young scientist’s most coveted prize: publication as lead author of a paper highly esteemed by her colleagues.
Well on her way to fulfilling her dreams both in research and medicine, Brown University M.D./Ph.D. student Angel Byrd nevertheless had recently begun to define herself by what was missing, said her adviser, Dr. Jonathan Reichner, associate professor of surgery (research) at Rhode Island Hospital. She still wasn’t a published author.
For years she had dedicated herself to studying how immune system cells capture invading fungal pathogens. Like those cells, called neutrophils, she had seized on seemingly every opportunity that had come her way. (more…)
UD professors study microbes as potential biomarkers for damaged concrete
Concrete is the most widely used construction material in the world. However, many concrete roadways and bridges crack due to internal chemical reactions, temperature fluctuations or external chemical and physical stresses.
One internal chemical reaction is the Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) that destroys the concrete from within. (more…)
The potential of gene therapy to boost heart muscle function was explored in a recent University of Washington animal study. The findings suggest that it might be possible to use this approach to treat patients whose hearts have been weakened by heart attacks and other heart conditions.
Michael Regnier, UW professor and vice chair of bioengineering, Charles Murry, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Biology and co-director of the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, and Sarah Nowakowski, a UW graduate student in bioengineering, led the study. The findings appeared online March 25 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (more…)
Berkeley Lab Researchers Produce First Step-by-Step Look at Transcription Initiation
Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have achieved a major advance in understanding how genetic information is transcribed from DNA to RNA by providing the first step-by-step look at the biomolecular machinery that reads the human genome.
“We’ve provided a series of snapshots that shows how the genome is read one gene at a time,” says biophysicist Eva Nogales who led this research. “For the genetic code to be transcribed into messenger RNA, the DNA double helix has to be opened and the strand of gene sequences has to be properly positioned so that RNA polymerase, the enzyme that catalyzes transcription, knows where the gene starts. The electron microscopy images we produced show how this is done.” (more…)
Jaisi laboratory tracks chemicals in water, farmland throughout Mid-Atlantic
University of Delaware researcher Deb Jaisi is using his newly established stable isotope facility in the Environmental Biogeochemistry Laboratory (EBL) to find the fingerprints of isotopes in chemical elements — specifically phosphorus — in order to track sources of nutrients in the environmentally-sensitive Chesapeake Bay, other bodies of water and farmland throughout the Mid-Atlantic.
Jaisi, assistant professor in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, explained that he and his research team are currently working on many projects in the EBL, including two that are funded through seed grants, one focusing on terrestrial phosphorus sources and the other on marine phosphorus sources in the Chesapeake. One of those grants is from the UD Research Foundation (UDRF) and is titled “Role of Non-terrestrial Phosphorus Sources in Eutrophication in the Chesapeake Bay.” (more…)
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Though scientists have long believed that complex organic molecules couldn’t survive fossilization, some 350-million-year-old remains of aquatic sea creatures uncovered in Ohio, Indiana, and Iowa have challenged that assumption.
The spindly animals with feathery arms—called crinoids, but better known today by the plant-like name “sea lily”—appear to have been buried alive in storms during the Carboniferous Period, when North America was covered with vast inland seas. Buried quickly and isolated from the water above by layers of fine-grained sediment, their porous skeletons gradually filled with minerals, but some of the pores containing organic molecules were sealed intact. (more…)
For over 20 years, Microsoft Research’s labs around the world have focused on research across a broad spectrum of topics in computer science. From the start, the organization has invested heavily in pioneering breakthroughs in machine intelligence, including efforts in machine learning and big data. In this interview, Distinguished Scientist Eric Horvitz talks about advances he sees on the horizon, the influence they will have on your daily life, and how insights from big data and developing more intelligent software and services will change the world.
REDMOND, Wash. – Feb. 15, 2013 – At Microsoft Research labs around the world, some very deep thinkers are contemplating big data.
This includes Eric Horvitz, distinguished scientist at Microsoft and co-director of Microsoft Research’s Redmond lab, who was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering for his work in “computational mechanisms for decision making under uncertainty and with bounded resources.” (more…)
