CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Jan. 18, 2011 — Physicists and bioengineers have developed an optical instrument allowing them to control the behavior of a worm just by shining a tightly focused beam of light at individual neurons inside the organism.
The pion…
New York, NY, January 12, 2011 — Coronary syndromes vary in severity, ranging from unstable angina, non-ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI), to ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), the most severe diagnosis. Little d…
WORCESTER, Mass. — A potentially life-threatening challenge characterized by pauses in breathing that can last for more than 20 seconds, apnea of prematurity (AOP) affects more than 50 percent of premature infants and is almost universal in the sm…
Type 1 diabetes (T1D), formerly known as juvenile diabetes, is a multifactorial disease of complex etiology characterized by the autoimmune destruction of pancreatic beta cells. In addition to genetic susceptibility, it is generally accepted that en…
A new study in the September 6 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology (www.jcb.org) helps define the role of an important ciliary protein, CEP290. The results could be applied toward targeted gene therapy in cilia-related diseases.
Mutations in hu…
An important discovery in modern molecular biology is that double-stranded RNA can quash the activity of specific genes in plants, animals, and fungi. In 1997, Dr. Andrew Fire of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and Dr. Craig Mello of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and their team found that by specially designing RNA with two strands they could silence targeted genes. Their discovery, called RNA interference (RNAi) was recently patented (US Patent 6,506,559 B1), and it has been widely licensed in the U.S., Europe, and Japan.