Skip to main content
Displaying 1188 of 2889 articles.

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...

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...

Researchers find new path to antibiotics in dirt

A teaspoon of dirt contains an estimated 10,000 species of bacteria, but it’s only one percent of these microbial bugs — the ones that can be grown easily in a lab — that have brought us antibiotics, anticancer agents and other useful drugs. The odds favor the other 99 percent for clinical pro...

Without glial cells, animals lose their senses

Sensory neurons have always put on a good show. But now it turns out they’ll be sharing the credit. In groundbreaking research to appear in the October 31 issue of Science, Rockefeller University scientists show that while neurons play the lead role in detecting sensory information, a second type...

New method provides panoramic view of protein-RNA interactions in living cells

DNA, it has turned out, isn’t all it was cracked up to be. In recent years we learned that the molecule of life, the discovery of the 20th century, did not — could not — by itself explain the huge differences in complexity between a human and a worm. Forced to look elsewhere, scientists turned...

By imaging living cells, researchers show how hepatitis C replicates

The hepatitis C virus is a prolific replicator, able to produce up to a trillion particles per day in an infected person by hijacking liver cells in which to build up its viral replication machinery. Now new research — in which scientists have for the first time used fluorescent proteins to image...