La Jolla, CA – The Salk Institute for Biological Studies was awarded a $2.3 million share of the stem cell research facilities grants approved by the governing board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) on June 5.
La Jolla, CA – Salk scientist Dr. Tony Hunter is the recipient of the 2006 Pasarow Award in Cancer Research for his key discoveries of the chemical “switch” that turns healthy cells into cancer cells.
La Jolla, CA – Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have overcome a long-standing problem in biology by equipping a protein with a small homing device, allowing it to slip behind the blood-brain barrier. Circumventing this barrier – specifically designed to keep substances out of the brain – is a crucial step for the delivery of drugs to the central nervous system (CNS).
La Jolla, CA – Like any new kid on the block that tries to fit in, newborn brain cells need to find their place within the existing network of neurons. The newcomers jump right into the fray and preferentially reach out to mature brain cells that are already well connected within the established circuitry, report scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in the online edition of Nature Neuroscience.
La Jolla, CA – The Salk Institute for Biological Studies today announced the appointment of Dr. Marsha A. Chandler to the new position of Executive Vice President/Chief Operating Officer. The Salk Board of Trustees unanimously approved the appointment at its meeting in New York City on April 26.
La Jolla, CA – In studies going back to the 1930’s, mice and many other species subsisting on a severely calorie-restricted diet have consistently outlived their well-fed peers by as much as 40 percent. But just how a diet verging on the brink of starvation extends lifespan has remained elusive.
La Jolla, CA – Salk Institute professor Ursula Bellugi, who pioneered the study of the biological foundation of language, has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. The Academy made the announcement today during its 144th annual meeting in Washington, DC. Election to the Academy recognizes distinguished and continuing achievements in original research, and is considered one of the highest honors accorded a U.S. scientist.
La Jolla, CA – Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have identified an enzyme that pumps up a cell’s ability to maintain healthy muscle and restores normal muscle function in genetically engineered mice with weak muscles. The study, published online in Nature Medicine, is the first to explore the part this enzyme plays in a cascade of events triggered by exercise-induced hormones and other signals.
La Jolla, CA – Ronald M. Evans, Ph.D., Professor in the Salk Institute’s Gene Expression Laboratory and a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator, has been named a recipient of the 2007 Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research – America’s top prize in medicine.
La Jolla, CA – Cilia, tiny hair-like structures that propel mucus out of airways, have to agree on the direction of the fluid flow to get things moving. Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies discovered a novel two-step mechanism that ensures that all cilia beat in unison.
La Jolla, CA – Los científicos han identificado tres señales diferentes que indican daño en los cloroplastos, las fábricas fotosintéticas de las células vegetales que les dan su color verde, pero se sabe poco sobre cómo la señal se transmite al núcleo. Científicos del Instituto Salk de Estudios Biológicos han dado un gran paso para explicar cómo los cloroplastos informan al núcleo de una célula cuando las cosas empiezan a ir mal en la periferia, para que la expresión génica nuclear pueda ajustarse en consecuencia.
La Jolla, CA – “Green” means “go,” but what does “red” mean? Just about everybody says “stop” since we all have learned to imbue certain colors with meaning (or we would be road kill by now). Long thought to be limited to higher levels of information processing, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies successfully traced this type of associative learning to early stages of the visual processing pathway.
La Jolla, CA – Jack’s magical beans may have produced beanstalks that grew and grew into the sky, but something about normal, run-of-the-mill plants limits their reach upward. For more than a century, scientists have tried to find out which part of the plant both drives and curbs growth: is it a shoot’s outer waxy layer? Its inner layer studded with chloroplasts? Or the vascular system that moves nutrients and water? The answer could have great implications for modern agriculture, which desires a modern magical bean or two.
La Jolla, CA – Although the Galápagos finches were to play a pivotal role in the inception of Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection, he had no inkling of their significance when he collected them during his voyage on the HMS Beagle.
La Jolla, CA – Knocking out the gene for a peptide associated with insulin secretion protects mice against the harmful effects of a high-fat diet, report researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Their findings, detailed in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that urocortin 3, a new peptide recently discovered in the insulin secreting cells of the pancreas, plays a role in the increased production of insulin in response to high caloric intake in animals.
La Jolla, CA – The ability to hit a baseball or play a piano well is part practice and part innate talent. One side of the equation required for skilled performances has its roots in the architecture of the brain genetically determined before birth, say scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Practice takes no explaining, just persistence.
La Jolla, CA – Form does follow function, as far as visual cortex neurons tasked with perceiving action are concerned. Far from being the static nerve cells researchers believed them to be, capable of performing only a single function, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies found these neurons rapidly shift back and forth between two ways of collecting information about moving objects.
La Jolla, CA – Researchers have long said they won't be able to understand the brain until they can put together a "wiring diagram" – a map of how billions of neurons are interconnected. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have jumped what many believe to be a major hurdle to preparing that chart: identifying all of the connections to a single neuron.
La Jolla, CA – Cada vez que una célula repara o replica su ADN, la hebra sencilla resultante es envuelta por un complejo proteico dedicado. En eucariotas u organismos cuyas células tienen un núcleo, esta tarea es manejada por un complejo tripartito llamado proteína de replicación A (RPA, por sus siglas en inglés). Investigadores del Instituto Salk de Estudios Biológicos han descubierto ahora un complejo similar a RPA que se enfoca específicamente en el extremo corto de “cola” de ADN de hebra sencilla de los cromosomas de levadura.
La Jolla, CA – Wielding a palette of chromosome paints, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have taken a step closer to understanding the relationship between aging and cancer by visualizing chromosomes of cells from patients with a heritable premature aging disease known as Werner Syndrome.
