La Jolla, Kalifornien – Ronald M. Evans, Ph.D., Professor und Leiter des Gene Expression Laboratory am Salk Institute for Biological Studies, erhält die Grande Médaille D’Or (Große Goldmedaille) 2005, die höchste wissenschaftliche Auszeichnung Frankreichs, für seine Forschung, die aufdeckte, wie Hormone und Medikamente den Stoffwechsel, die Entwicklung und die Fortpflanzung des Körpers steuern.
La Jolla, CA – The cellular cascade of molecular signals that instructs cells with fatally damaged DNA to self-destruct pivots on the p53 tumor suppressor gene. If p53 is inactivated, as it is in over half of all human cancers, checks and balances on cell growth fail to operate, and body cells start to accumulate mutations, which ultimately may lead to cancer. Not surprisingly, the regulation of this vital safeguard has been studied in great detail for many years but mainly in tissue culture, or in vitro, models.
La Jolla, CA – Nature is a seemingly endless storehouse of interesting – and potentially life-saving – biological molecules. But tracking down and harvesting those chemicals in their natural form can be time-consuming, expensive and unreliable.
La Jolla, CA – Brains are marvels of diversity: no two look the same – not even those of otherwise identical twins. Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies may have found one explanation for the puzzling variety in brain organization and function: mobile elements, pieces of DNA that can jump from one place in the genome to another, randomly changing the genetic information in single brain cells. If enough of these jumps occur, they could allow individual brains to develop in distinctly different ways.
La Jolla, Kalifornien – Geoffrey M. Wahl, Ph.D., professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, recently was elected the 2006-07 president of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the world’s oldest and largest professional organization dedicated to accelerating scientific progress to prevent and cure cancer.
La Jolla, CA – The mysterious, highly infectious prions, which cause the severe destruction of the brain that characterizes ‘mad cow disease’ and several human brain degenerative disorders, can be rendered harmless in the laboratory by a slight alternation of the three-dimensional conformation or shape of the prion protein’s structure.
La Jolla, CA – To ignite a life-threatening infection in the body, a virus such as HIV invades body cells by first merging, or fusing, with the cell’s outer membrane. Once inside the cell, the invading microbe’s genetic material takes over, turning the ‘host’ cell into a factory to produce more copies of the virus, which then spill out to invade other cells in the body.
La Jolla, CA – A newborn baby moves, breathes and cries in part because a network of nerves called motor neurons carry signals from the infant’s brain and spinal cord to muscles throughout its body.
La Jolla, CA – Humans and other animals may appear to be symmetrical on the outside, but symmetry is only skin deep. Many body organs, such as the stomach, the heart and the liver, are tipped to the right or left side. So how does the developing embryo distinguish left from right? Salk scientists have now discovered that the foundations for the basic left-right body plan are laid by a microscopic ‘pump’ on the outer surface of the embryo’s underside that wafts chemical messengers over to the left side of the body. This sets up a chemical concentration gradient that tells stem cells how and where to develop. The remarkable findings, including movie footage of the ‘pump,’ are published in the May 20th edition of the journal Zelle.
La Jolla, CA – When primitive nerve cells begin forming an eye in the mouse embryo, they are programmed to build a retina. But the ability to see depends upon connecting the retina to the brain via the optic nerve. Unless these embryonic cells are given the right cue at the right time, they mistakenly form a huge eye that consists entirely of retina and lacks the optic nerve.
La Jolla, CA – In this week’s journal Natur, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies report that they have solved one of the ‘holy grail’ puzzles of developmental biology: the existence of a mechanism that insures that the exterior of our bodies is symmetrical while inner organs are arranged asymmetrically.
La Jolla, Kalifornien – Fred H. “Rusty” Gage, Ph.D., whose basic research at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies has advanced scientific understanding about the potential of the adult brain and nervous system to repair itself, has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a distinction awarded annually to top individuals in business, government, public affairs, the arts and popular culture as well as biomedical research.
La Jolla, CA – The ability of a pair of legs to walk in a stepwise fashion with each other appears to be set up during a brief period as an embryo’s spine develops, when a single neurotransmitter takes its turn to “talk” to nerve cells.
La Jolla, CA – During embryonic development, thousands of nerves must be connected to muscles as part of a communication network that allows the newborn to move, breathe and lead a normal life. The question is, how does this complicated ‘telephone system’ get wired up?
La Jolla, CA – On the morning of April 12, jhundreds of Salk scientists, graduate students and staff will begin their day at the Institute by celebrating the 50th anniversary of the vaccine that has saved them – and millions of others – from becoming crippled or dying from poliomyelitis or polio.
La Jolla, CA – Der Wissenschaftler des Salk Institute, der zuvor entdeckte, dass die Erhöhung der Funktion eines einzelnen Proteins eine Maus mit angeborener Resistenz gegen Gewichtszunahme und der Fähigkeit, eine Meile ohne Unterbrechung zu laufen, hervorbrachte, hat neue Beweise dafür gefunden, dass dieses Protein und ein verwandtes Protein eine zentrale Rolle im komplexen Weg des Körpers zur Adipositas spielen und einen neuen und spezifischen metabolischen Ansatz für die Behandlung von krankheitsbedingter Adipositas wie Syndrom X (Insulinresistenz, Hyperlipidämie und Atherosklerose) bieten.
La Jolla, Kalifornien – Wissenschaftler des Salk Instituts für Biologische Studien haben ein winziges, flexibles Tor identifiziert, das das blitzschnelle Öffnen und Schließen einer Familie von Ionenkanälen steuert, durch die Kaliumionen in und aus Körperzellen fließen.
La Jolla, Kalifornien – Sascha du Lac und Joseph P. Noel, both basic research scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, were selected for the prestigious position of Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator.
La Jolla, CA – The elusive world of membrane proteins – the crucial gatekeepers of a body cell’s outer wall that are popular targets for scientists trying to understand the molecular origins of health and disease – has been made more accessible through a discovery published in the February 25 issue of Science.
La Jolla, CA – A hallmark of brain organization is that nerve cells (neurons) with similar function are grouped together. But Salk Institute for Biological Studies research published in Nature on February 24 shows that neighboring neurons also keep secrets that they share only with trusted friends.
