La Jolla, CA – A team of biologists from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, UC San Diego, and Oregon State University has identified the genes that enable plants to undergo bursts of rhythmic growth at night and allow them to compete when their leaves are shaded by other plants.
La Jolla, CA – Neurons constituting the optic nerve wire up to the brain in a highly dynamic way. Cell bodies in the developing retina sprout processes, called axons, which extend toward visual centers in the brain, lured by attractive cues and making U-turns when they take the wrong path. How they find targets so accurately is a central question of neuroscience today.
La Jolla, CA – Even closely related plants produce their own natural chemical cocktails, each set uniquely adapted to the individual plant’s specific habitat. Comparing anti-fungals produced by tobacco and henbane, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies discovered that only a few mutations in a key enzyme are enough to shift the whole output to an entirely new product mixture. Making fewer changes led to a mixture of henbane and tobacco-specific molecules and even so-called “chemical hybrids,” explaining how plants can tinker with their natural chemical factories and adjust their product line to a changing environment without shutting down intracellular chemical factories completely.
La Jolla, CA – Body weight and fertility have long known to be related to each other – women who are too thin, for example, can have trouble becoming pregnant. Now, a master switch has been found in the brain of mice that controls both, and researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies say it may work the same way in humans.
La Jolla, CA – It may take just one or two proteins to polish off a simple cellular task, but life-or-death matters, such as caring for the ends of chromosomes known as telomeres, require interacting crews of proteins, all with a common goal but each with a specialized task.
La Jolla, CA – As the summer approaches most of us rejoice, reach for the sunscreen and head outdoors. But an ever-growing number of people reach for tissue instead as pollen leaves eyes watering, noses running and spirits dwindling. Hay fever is just one of a host of hypersensitivity allergic diseases that cause suffering worldwide and others, such as severe reactions to bee stings or eating peanuts, can be more serious and even fatal.
La Jolla, CA – The bird enthusiast who chronicled the adventures of a flock of red-headed conures in his book "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill" knows most of the parrots by name, yet most of us would be hard pressed to tell one bird from another. While it has been known for a long time that we can become acutely attuned to our day-to-day environment, the underlying neural mechanism has been less clear.
LA JOLLA, CA—Trying to reap the health benefits of exercise? Forget treadmills and spin classes, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies may have found a way around the sweat and pain. They identified two signaling pathways that are activated in response to exercise and converge to dramatically increase endurance.
La Jolla, CA – Logic says it has to be the niche. As air and water preceded life, so the niche, that hospitable environment that shelters adult stem cells in many tissues and provides factors necessary to keep them young and vital, must have emerged before its stem cell dependents.
La Jolla, CA – When it comes to cellular communication networks, a primitive single-celled microbe that answers to the name of Monosiga brevicollis has a leg up on animals composed of billions of cells. It commands a signaling network more elaborate and diverse than found in any multicellular organism higher up on the evolutionary tree, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have discovered.
La Jolla, CA – In recent years, stem cell researchers have become very adept at manipulating the fate of adult stem cells cultured in the lab. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies achieved the same feat with adult neural stem cells still in place in the brain. They successfully coaxed mouse brain stem cells bound to join the neuronal network to differentiate into support cells instead.
La Jolla, Kalifornien – Die Salk Institute for Biological Studies und die Foundation for Prader-Willi Research (FPWR) today announced a partnership that will forge new research to study a rare genetic disorder that thwarts appetite regulation and leads to extreme obesity.
La Jolla, CA – Mammals have two types of light-sensitive detectors in the retina. Known as rod and cone cells, they are both necessary to picture their environment. However, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have found that eliminating a third sensor – cells expressing a photopigment called melanopsin that measures the intensity of incoming light – makes the circadian clock blind to light, yet leaves normal vision intact.
La Jolla, Kalifornien – Wissenschaftler des Salk Institute Samuel L. Pfaff und Andrew Dillin have been selected as Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigators, HHMI announced today. Both join a prestigious group of the nation’s top biomedical researchers who share the coveted title given to science’s most innovative minds.
La Jolla, Kalifornien – Tatyana Sharpee, an assistant professor in the Salk Institute’s Laboratory for Computational Biology, has been named a 2008 Searle Scholar. She will receive $300,000 over the next three years in support of her research entitled “Computational Principles of Natural Sensory Processing.”
La Jolla, CA – Diabetiker haben ein signifikant höheres Risiko, an Alzheimer zu erkranken, doch der molekulare Zusammenhang zwischen beiden bleibt ungeklärt. Nun haben Forscher des Salk Institute for Biological Studies die wahrscheinliche molekulare Grundlage für die Wechselwirkung zwischen Diabetes und Alzheimer identifiziert.
La Jolla, CA – Dr. Clodagh O’Shea, eine Assistenzprofessorin am Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory am Salk Institute for Biological Studies, wurde mit dem Beckmann Young Investigator Award 2008 ausgezeichnet. Sie erhält $300.000 über einen Zeitraum von drei Jahren, um neue Technologien für den schnellen Aufbau und die zelltypenspezifische Ansteuerung therapeutischer Viren zu entwickeln.
La Jolla, CA – Nachdem nun die Biologie-Schüler der High School auswendig aufsagen können, dass Gene aus DNA bestehen, die in Boten-RNA (mRNA) transkribiert und dann in Protein übersetzt wird, kommt eine neue Klasse von Molekülen auf, die Schüler – und viele Wissenschaftler – dazu bringt, nach aktualisierten Lehrbüchern zu suchen.
La Jolla, CA – Das Salk Institute gab heute die Wahl von Gerald L. Parsky in seinen Aufsichtsrat (Board of Trustees) bekannt. Das Gremium genehmigte die Ernennung einstimmig auf seiner jüngsten Sitzung in New York City.
La Jolla, CA – Menschen und Fruchtfliegen – diese lästigen kleinen Biester, die unwiderstehlich von überreifem Obst angezogen werden – teilen mehr als eine Naschkatze. Beide verlassen sich auf denselben Insulin-regulierten molekularen Weg, um ihr Energiegleichgewicht im Hungerzustand aufrechtzuerhalten, berichtet ein Forscherteam des Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
