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HIV gets a makeover: A few adjustments to the AIDS virus could alter the course of research

The slow pace of AIDS research can be pinned, in no small part, on something akin to the square-peg-round-hole conundrum. The HIV-1 virus won’t replicate in monkey cells, so researchers use a monkey virus — known as SIVmac, or the macaque version of simian immunodeficiency virus — to test pote...

New function for protein links plant's circadian rhythm to its light-detection mechanism

They may not sleep — or dream — but plants do have day-night cycles just like animals. Their internal timekeepers tell them how long the days are, helping the plants control photosynthesis and flowering. Now, new research from Nam-Hai Chua’s laboratory at Rockefeller University has identified ...

Rockefeller University receives $45 million NIH grant for clinical, translational science

The National Center for Research Resources at the National Institutes of Health announced today that Rockefeller University has been awarded one of the first Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA), a component of the NIH Roadmap designed to transform clinical and translational research ...

Animal study suggests two amino acids may modulate addictive behavior

For some, living without alcohol, cigarettes or even coffee is a daily struggle. Others can give up their vices without ever looking back. From a biological standpoint, the difference may be as slight as a single amino acid, suggests new research from the Rockefeller University laboratories of Ma...

Rockefeller, with four other institutions, to receive $100 million cancer research grant

The Starr Foundation, a philanthropic organization that supports education, medicine and healthcare, as well as cultural institutions, human needs, public policy and the environment, announced today that it has made a $100 million grant to create a wide-ranging cancer consortium to coordinate the...

A wolf in sheep's clothing: plague bacteria reveal one of their virulence tricks

The bacterium that causes the plague belongs to a virulent family of bacteria called Yersinia, a group that also includes a pathogen responsible for food poisoning. These bacteria insert into their host cells proteins and other virulence factors, which kill by — among other things — disrupting ...

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...

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...

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...

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...