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Discovery: Cell protein transport and an approach to cancer
The center of this story, in more ways than one, is the Golgi apparatus (pronounced ‘goal jee’). As a crude analogy, think of the Golgi apparatus as a re-packaging operation inside of living cells. It...
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Small steps toward understanding the epigenome
“You can think of it this way,” said Ren. “Neurons and skin cells share the identical set of genetic material – DNA – yet their structure and function are very different. The difference can be...
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New for epigenetics: Active pseudogenes and RNA as gene regulator
How is it that the human genome, with about 23,000 protein coding genes, can produce such a complicated organism as the human being, when the laboratory flatworm (C. elegans, a relatively simple...
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Stem cells: Myc does much more
To put it mildly, not thinking beyond assumptions can lead to surprises. This also applies to science. For many years scientists thought that the gene known as Myc (“mick”) plays a role in causing...
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New tool: Nanoneedle to the nucleus
For scientists, as for everybody else, it helps to see what’s happening. This is hard to do in the nucleus of a living cell. Standard techniques for watching the activity within the nucleus use dyes or...
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Histones: DNA packaging and much more
DNA winds around histones….Credit: Max Planck Society Most everybody knows that DNA is the carrier of the genetic code, the instructions for how life reproduces, grows, and maintains. Cell biologists...
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Discovery: An immune system within cells
The human body has a pretty good immune system. Because it’s so crucial to our health, scientists and doctors have been studying the immune system intensely for a long time. A good deal is known about...
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The microbiome: Our life in common with microorganisms
Fifth in a series of posts inspired by ten topics in ‘Insights of the Decade’ from the December 17, 2010 special issue of Science Magazine The topics are: Inflammation, climatology, tricks of light,...
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Reprogramming cells: The post stem cell future?
Sixth in a series of posts inspired by ten topics in ‘Insights of the Decade’ from the December 17, 2010 special issue of Science Magazine The topics are: Inflammation, climatology, tricks of light,...
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Nanobeam: Monitoring cells from the inside
A nanobeam probe (handle showing) inserted into a cell……credit: Gary Shambat, Stanford School of Engineering Scientists, like journalists, like to get the inside story. In the case of biologists, it...
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