LA JOLLA, CA—Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have developed an improved technique for generating large numbers of blood cells from a patient’s own cells. The new technique will be immediately useful in further stem cell studies, and when perfected, could be used in stem cell therapies for a wide variety of conditions including cancers and immune ailments.
LA JOLLA, CA—Ipsen and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies announced today that they are renewing the Ipsen Life Sciences Program at the Salk Institute. The mission of the partnership is to advance knowledge in the field of proliferative and degenerative diseases through fundamental and applied biology research.
LA JOLLA—Tickets are now available online for the 16th annual “Symphony at Salk–a concert under the stars” featuring Tony Award-winning Idina Menzel, who will perform with the San Diego Symphony under the direction of returning guest conductor Thomas Wilkins.
LA JOLLA, CA—Researchers at the Salk Institute have been able to genetically incorporate “unnatural” amino acids, such as those emitting green fluorescence, into neural stem cells, which then differentiate into brain neurons with the incandescent “tag” intact.
LA JOLLA, CA—Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have found clues to the functioning of an important damage response protein in cells. The protein, p53, can cause cells to stop dividing or even to commit suicide when they show signs of DNA damage, and it is responsible for much of the tissue destruction that follows exposure to ionizing radiation or DNA-damaging drugs such as the ones commonly used for cancer therapy. The new finding shows that a short segment on p53 is needed to fine-tune the protein’s activity in blood-forming stem cells and their progeny after they incur DNA damage.
LA JOLLA, CA—A recent study from scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies suggests that a strawberry a day (or more accurately, 37 of them) could keep not just one doctor away, but an entire fleet of them, including the neurologist, the endocrinologist, and maybe even the oncologist.
LA JOLLA, CA—The Salk Institute for Biological Studies announced that Dr. Axel Nimmerjahn, Assistant Professor in the Waitt Advanced Biophotonics Center and holder of the Richard Allan Barry Developmental Chair, has been named a 2011 Rita Allen Scholar. Nimmerjahn is one of seven scientists out of 28 candidates to be selected this year and only the third Salk faculty member to receive this award.
LA JOLLA, CA—Lending credence to the popular notion that good things come in threes, Salk Institute professor Fred “Rusty” Gage, Ph.D. recently was recognized with a trio of honors on two continents: Spain’s Cátedra Santiago Grisolía Award 2011, an honorary doctorate in medicine from Lund University in Sweden and appointment as president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR).
La Jolla—Plant biologist Joseph R. Ecker, Ph.D., professor and director of the Genomic Analysis Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, has been selected for a prestigious position as an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF).
La Jolla—The Salk Institute for Biological Studies announced the appointment of Andy Hoang as the new Director of Media Relations.
La Jolla—Birds do it, bees do it, and for most things biological, even plants do it. But not necessarily like their animal counterparts. A study led by Salk Institute scientists shows that a plant receptor does one of the most fundamental cellular “its”—the delivery of a hormonal signal from outside the cell to the nucleus—in a radically different way than its animal cousins. Knowing that could aid creation of techniques to speed plant growth and enhance agricultural production.
La Jolla—The 2011 Cell Cycle meeting will be held at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, starting at 7:00 P.M. on Friday, June 17 and ending on Monday, June 20, 2011. Since 1999 the Salk Institute has held the Cell Cycle Meeting every other year, alternating with Cold Spring Harbor, where the Cell Cycle Meeting was initiated in 1992.
LA JOLLA—Tony Award-winning superstar Idina Menzel will step into the spotlight as the featured headliner for the 16th annual “Symphony at Salk-a concert under the stars” to perform with the San Diego Symphony under the direction of acclaimed guest conductor Thomas Wilkins on Aug. 27, 2011.
LA JOLLA, CA—The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is proud to announce that the Salk Educational Outreach program was honored May 25, 2011 by the San Diego Unified School District as a 20-year Partner in Education at a special End-of-Year Partner/Volunteer Awards Ceremony honoring 10, 20, and 25-year partners, Volunteers of the Year, and Partners of the Year.
LA JOLLA, CA—The Royal Society announced today that Salk Institute molecular biologist Joanne Chory, Ph.D., an expert on how plants regulate their growth, has been named a foreign member of the Royal Society, the world’s oldest scientific academy in continuous existence. She is being recognized as “a beacon of scientific excellence and relentless ambassador for plant research in the international community.”
LA JOLLA, CA—The seeds sprouting in your spring garden may still be struggling to reach the sun. If so, they are consuming a finite energy pack contained within each seed. Once those resources are depleted, the plant cell nucleus must be ready to switch on a “green” photosynthetic program. Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies recently showed a new way that those signals are relayed.
LA JOLLA, CA—Today, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies announced the visionary gift of Irwin and Joan Jacobs in the dedication of two endowed chairs to pay permanent tribute to Drs. Dulbecco and Guillemin, two of Salk’s Nobel Prize winners as well as former Presidents, for their incredible achievements in science and research, the leadership they have provided over the years, and for the legions of scientists they have mentored and inspired.
LA JOLLA, CA—A multi-institutional team headed by Ursula Bellugi, professor and director of the Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, has been awarded a $5.5 million Program Project Grant by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to link social behavior to its underlying neurobiological and molecular genetic basis using Williams syndrome as a model.
LA JOLLA, CA—In principle, genetic engineering is simple, but in practice, replacing a faulty gene with a healthy copy is anything but. Using mutated versions of the lamin A gene as an example to demonstrate the versatility of their virus-based approach, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies successfully edited a diseased gene in patient-specific induced pluripotent stem cells as well as adult stem cells.
LA JOLLA, CA—By virtue of having survived, all animals-from flies to man-share a common expertise. All can distinguish times of plenty from famine and adjust their metabolism or behavior accordingly. Failure to do so signals either extinction or disease.
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