AUSTIN, TX — A new form of proteins discovered by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin could drastically improve treatments for cancer and other diseases, as well as overcome some of the largest challenges in therapeutics: delivering drugs to patients safely, easily and more effectively.
The protein formulation strategy, discovered by chemical engineering faculty members and students in the Cockrell School of Engineering, is unprecedented and offers a new and universal approach to drug delivery — one that could revolutionize treatment of cancer, arthritis and infectious disease. (more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — A team of researchers led by Michigan State University has discovered an overachieving plant enzyme that works both the day and night shifts.
The discovery, featured in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, shows that plants evolved a new function for this enzyme by changing merely one of its protein building blocks. (more…)
It’s a researcher’s dream: a simple, noninvasive test to detect life-threatening cancer, heart disease, or other maladies while they’re still treatable.
A team of University of Minnesota researchers is in hot pursuit of that goal, using one of the simplest means imaginable: testing spit. They’ve discovered that conditions such as breast and oral cancer leak certain proteins into saliva, and if detected, such proteins can be “biomarkers” for the disease.(more…)
In a study that holds major implications for breast cancer research as well as basic cell biology, scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have discovered a rotational motion that plays a critical role in the ability of breast cells to form the spherical structures in the mammary gland known as acini. This rotation, which the researchers call “CAMo,” for coherent angular motion, is necessary for the cells to form spheres. Without CAMo, the cells do not form spheres, which can lead to random motion, loss of structure and malignancy.
”What is most exciting to me about this stunning discovery is that it may finally give us a handle by which to discover the physical laws of cellular motion as they apply to biology,” says Mina Bissell, a leading authority on breast cancer and Distinguished Scientist with Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division. (more…)
*Joint BioEnergy Institute Researchers Identify Key Enzyme Structure*
The recent discovery that bisabolane, a member of the terpene class of chemical compounds used in fragrances and flavorings, holds high promise as a biosynthetic alternative to D2 diesel fuel has generated keen interest in the green energy community and the trucking industry. Now a second team of researchers with the U.S Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) has determined the three-dimensional crystal structure of a protein that is key to boosting the microbial-based production of bisabolane as an advanced biofuel.
The JBEI research team, led by bioengineers Paul Adams and Jay Keasling, solved the protein crystal structure of an enzyme in the Grand fir (Abies grandis) that synthesizes bisabolene, the immediate terpene precursor to bisabolane. The performance of this enzyme – the Abies grandis α-bisabolene synthase (AgBIS) – when engineered into microbes, has resulted in a bottleneck that hampers the conversion by the microbes of simple sugars into bisabolene. (more…)
Suppressing a newly identified protein involved in regulating cell division could be a novel strategy for fighting certain cancers because it stops the malignant cells from dividing and causes them to die quickly, according to a study by researchers at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.
During the five-year study, designed to seek new targets for anti-cancer therapies, researchers discovered that depleting the protein, called STARD9, also helped the commonly used chemotherapy drug Taxol work more effectively against certain cancers. (more…)
Human pluripotent stem cells, which can develop into any cell type in the body, rely heavily on glycolysis, or sugar fermentation, to drive their metabolic activities.
In contrast, mature cells in children and adults depend more on cell mitochondria to convert sugar and oxygen into carbon dioxide and water during a high energy–producing process called oxidative phosphorylation. (more…)
*Potential mechanism for dazzling blue flashes of light in oceans identified*
It has long been known that spectacular blue flashes–a type of bioluminescence–that are visible at night in some marine environments (currently including coastal California waters) are caused by tiny, unicellular plankton known as dinoflagellates. However, a new study has, for the first time, detailed the potential mechanism for this bioluminescence.
The study, which was partially funded by the National Science Foundation, is reported by Susan Smith of Emory School of Medicine, Thomas DeCoursey of Rush University Medical Center and colleagues in the Oct. 17, 2011 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). (more…)
