LA JOLLA, CA‚Ever wondered why you wake up in the morning—even when the alarm clock isn't making jarring noises? Wonder no more. Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have identified a new component of the biological clock, a gene responsible for starting the clock from its restful state every morning.

LA JOLLA, CA—Dr. Fred Gage, a professor in the Salk Institute Laboratory of Genetics and holder of the Vi and John Adler Chair for Research on Age-Related Neurodegenerative Diseases, has been named a 2011 recipient of the prestigious National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director's Transformative Research Projects (T-R01) program.

LA JOLLA, CA—Researchers at the Salk Institute have discovered how a hormone turns on a series of molecular switches inside the pancreas that increases production of insulin.

La Jolla—A strain of genetically enhanced bacteria developed by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies may pave the way for new synthetic drugs and new ways of manufacturing medicines and biofuels, according to a paper published September 18 in Nature Chemical Biology.

LA JOLLA, CA—Axel Nimmerjahn, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Waitt Advanced Biophotonics Center and holder of the Richard Allan Barry Developmental Chair in Biophotonics has been awarded a highly selective grant from the Whitehall Foundation. He will receive $223,000.00 over three years to study the contribution of astrocytes to normal brain function.

LA JOLLA, CA—A "hidden" code linked to the DNA of plants allows them to develop and pass down new biological traits far more rapidly than previously thought, according to the findings of a groundbreaking study by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

LA JOLLA, CA—Oncologists have long sought a powerful "magic bullet" that can find tumors wherever they hide in the body so that they can be imaged and then destroyed. Until recently scientists accepted the notion that such an agent, an agonist, needed to enter and accumulate in the cancerous cells to act. An international research team has now shown in cancer patients that an investigational agent that sticks onto the surface of tumor cells without triggering internalization, an antagonist, may be safer and even more effective than agonists.

LA JOLLA, CA—More than 230,000 women in United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, of which nearly 10% will have mutations in either BRCA1 or 2 genes. The BRCA1 gene and its protein are known to play a powerful role in preventing breast and ovarian cancer development, but just how it does this has long been a debated, even controversial, topic. Now, in the September 8th issue of Nature, researchers at the Salk Institute may have found an answer—and it suggests the differing prevailing theories up to now were all a little bit right.

LA JOLLA, CA—If you think today's political rhetoric is overheated, imagine what goes on inside a vertebrate embryo. There, two armies whose agendas are poles apart, engage in a battle with consequences much more dire than whether the economy will recover—they are battling for whether you (or frogs or chickens) will have a forebrain.

Perched high above the Pacific Ocean, under a canopy of stars, the iconic courtyard was transformed into an enchanting concert venue for the 16th annual Symphony at Salk.