Skip to main content

Rockefeller University

News & Highlights > News
Science News

Phosphorylation of WAVE1 protein remodels neuronal connections

Paper marks 50th anniversary of Paul Greengard's first publication in journal Nature.  Within the brain, branched nerve cell extensions called dendrites play a key role in how cells communicate with one another by sending electrical signals from the tip of one neuron to the tip of the next – a p...
Science News

A once maligned drug's second-life as an immune booster

Thalidomide — a drug long villified for causing severe birth defects when pregnant women took it to relieve morning sickness — has resurfaced in the last decade as a potential boon for patients with certain bone marrow disorders. A new thalidomide derivative called Revlimid was recently approved...
Science News

HIV protein acts as a solvent, releasing viral particles from the surface of their host cell

In 1989, researchers discovered an HIV protein called Vpu that was key to how the AIDS virus spreads from cell to cell. Produced only by the HIV-1 virus and its closest relatives, Vpu appeared to be somehow involved in helping put together new viral particles and assisting with their release from...
Campus News

Chemical immunologist recruited to head new Rockefeller lab

A faculty search process begun last year has yielded its second successful recruit, the chemical immunologist Howard Hang, who will join The Rockefeller University as assistant professor and head of the Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Microbial Pathogenesis in early 2007. Hang, who comes to Ro...
Science News

Protein linked to antibodies also has an antiviral function, researchers show

In biology, it’s actually possible to teach an old dog a new trick. A new finding from Rockefeller University’s Nina Papavasiliou has shown that a protein called AID, which is involved in creating diversity among immune system antibodies, evolved long before antibodies themselves did — suggest...
Science News

Structural analysis of SpvB protein show how Salmonella bacteria hijack a cell

When Salmonella bacteria attack, they create their own compartment or vacuole in the host’s cell, in which they replicate. Now, in a cover article published this week in the journal Structure, Rockefeller University scientists show how the pathogen uses a protein called SpvB to create this comp...
Science News

Leprosy bacteria lead to new understanding of nerve damage and cell proliferation

For nervous system cells, specialization is a one-way street. But as is often the case in biology, the rules have exceptions. Glial cells — nervous system cells that form a highly specialized insulating sheath called myelin that surrounds nerve fibers — under certain conditions can “de-differe...
Science News

Expression of 'Blimp1' gene leads to the discovery of cells responsible for skin's sebaceous gland

Mice may not get zits, but they do have oily skin. This week, new research on mice from Rockefeller University shows how the cells responsible for oil production develop, and uncovers clues about how stem cells renew and differentiate. The research focuses on the skin’s sebaceous gland, which i...
Science News

Rockefeller researchers receive Gates Foundation grant for HIV vaccine research

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced 16 grants totaling $287 million to create an international network of highly collaborative research consortia focused on accelerating the pace of HIV vaccine development. The grants will support a range of innovative approaches for designing an ef...
Science News

Scientists ID a single sugar that allows antibodies to fight inflammation

For years, researchers have struggled to understand how IVIG works. Its ability to treat autoimmune diseases seemed to be an apparent contradiction. Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) is a complex mixture of IgG antibodies made from human plasma that contains the pooled antibodies from thousands o...
View
Previous
Next
View
Previous
Next