Press monitoring
A hardy rodent with extraordinary anticancer defences
14.4.2017 | Press monitoring
Scientists are getting closer to understanding how naked mole rats, the world's longest living rodent species, avoid cancer, which could lead to safer stem cell therapies for human diseases. Mole rats live up to 30 years, 10 times longer than mice, and captured colonies almost never show any type of cancer. Understanding these animals'...
Engineered E. coli could color-code your poop to diagnose gut problems
12.4.2017 | Press monitoring
Humans have an uneasy relationship with bacteria – sure, they can make us very sick, but we also couldn't live without the complex society residing in our guts. Now, researchers at Rice University have engineered E. coli to help detect inflammation in the colon of mice by infiltrating that microbiome and sending color signals through their...
How octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish defy genetics central dogma
10.4.2017 | Press monitoring
Octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish often do not follow the genetic instructions in their DNA to the letter. Instead, they use enzymes to pluck out specific adenosine RNA bases (some of As, out of the As, Ts, Gs, and Us of RNA) that codes for proteins and replace them with a different base, called Inosine. This process—called "RNA editing"—is...
Edited live vaccine could stop harmful polio outbreaks
7.4.2017 | Press monitoring
We’re on the brink of wiping out polio, but the virus used in vaccines keeps evolving to become harmful again. The discovery of how the virus mutates to do this could lead to a safer vaccine. Polio once killed hundreds of thousands of children every year. The disease has largely been brought under control by the oral polio vaccine, which contains...
Newly characterized protein has potential to save US farmers millions annually
5.4.2017 | Press monitoring
Instead of turning carbon into food, many plants accidentally make a plant-toxic compound during photosynthesis that is recycled through a process called photorespiration. University of Illinois and USDA/ARS researchers report in Plant Cell the discovery of a key protein in this process, which they hope to manipulate to increase plant...
Transgenic plants against malaria
3.4.2017 | Press monitoring
Scientists have discovered a gene that allows to double the production of artemisinin in the Artemisia annua plant. The artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) is the standard treatment for malaria worldwide, endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO). Since the ancient times, mankind has used plants to treat diseases. An example is the...
Scientists discover mechanism that causes cancer cells to self-destruct
31.3.2017 | Press monitoring
Many cancer patients struggle with the adverse effects of chemotherapy, still the most prescribed cancer treatment. For patients with pancreatic cancer and other aggressive cancers, the forecast is more grim: there is no known effective therapy. A new Tel Aviv University study published last month in Oncotarget discloses the role of three...
Immortalized stem cells produce bigger, better blood batches
29.3.2017 | Press monitoring
Donating blood saves lives, but there's never enough, especially when the difficulties of storage and matching blood types are taken into account. Artificial blood has been in the works for years, but it's held back by the fact that the stem cells it's grown from can only produce so many red blood cells. Now, researchers at the University of...
Team nebulizes aphids to knock down gene expression
27.3.2017 | Press monitoring
Researchers are nebulizing soybean aphids with RNA, which, when incorporated into the body, can hinder the expression of specific genes. The new method of delivering "interfering RNA" in a mist will likely speed the process of discovering the function of many mystery genes in insects, the researchers report in the journal Insect Molecular...
Lab-grown chicken on the menu for the first time
24.3.2017 | Press monitoring
Memphis Meats has just served up chicken and duck meat cultivated in a lab from poultry cells, meaning no animals were harmed in the making of the meal. Along with the ethical issues of animal cruelty that surround a carnivorous diet, feeding, breeding and keeping livestock for food has an enormous environmental impact. The animals burp more...
