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Dendritic cells coordinate and direct the body’s immune response, playing a crucial role in our ability to fend off disease. By processing molecules from invading pathogens — called antigens — they can present those molecules for other immune cells to recognize and attack. But researchers have...

Cell death during animal development acts like an eraser — sculpting organs, the nervous system, fingers and toes — by removing unnecessary or unneeded cells. There are a few different processes that regulate how and when cells die, but research from Rockefeller University identifies a new type ...

Plants might not get colds, but they do get viruses — and viral diseases in crops cause enormous economic damage each year. New research, however, suggests that plant “vaccines,” developed at Rockefeller University, may be a new way of helping fend off viral attackers. “Plants possess sever...

Since HIV was discovered in the early 1980s, scanning electron microscopes have been capturing images of the virus associated with different membranes of the cell they’ve infected. They can be seen stuck to the cell’s outer plasma membrane, as well as within membrane-enclosed structures called e...

When cells get stressed, their proteins go unfolded. It’s a reaction with a straightforward name: the unfolded protein response. Now, new research from Rockefeller University shows that this phenomenon actually serves a protective role; rather than a sign that the cells have given up, it may be a...

When a cell has to destroy any of its organelles or protein aggregates, it envelopes them in a membrane, forming an autophagosome, and then moves them to another compartment, the lysosome, for digestion. Two years ago, Rockefeller University assistant professor Christian Münz showed that this pro...

First-time parents face an array of choices, each one seemingly vital for a newborn’s developing body and brain: cloth or disposable diapers? Breast milk or formula? Nanny or daycare? New research from neurobiologists at Rockefeller University may have something to say about that last question, s...

For stem cells, timing is key: To maintain their versatility they rely on a molecular mechanism that keeps the cells in a state of self-renewal until they are needed by adjacent tissue. Now, new research by Rockefeller University’s Elaine Fuchs reveals that in skin, the Tcf3 protein is a critical...

For cells, like people, relationships are based on good communication. In yeast cells, however, scientists have shown that communication between certain molecules involved in gene regulation can trigger the cell’s suicide program, suggesting that molecular “crosstalk” may be an important mecha...

Mosquitoes don’t mind morning breath. They use the carbon dioxide people exhale as a way to identify a potential food source. But when they bite, they can pass on a number of dangerous infectious diseases, such as malaria, yellow fever, and West Nile encephalitis. Now, Leslie Vosshall’s laborato...