Recent Discoveries
LA JOLLA—Every day, the liver packages fat and releases it into the bloodstream to fuel the body, supplying energy to the heart, muscles, and other organs during the active hours of the day. The liver does not release fat into the bloodstream at random. Like much of human physiology, this daily export of fat follows a precise rhythm, timed to the body’s internal clock. But what molecular signal tells the liver when to act?
LA JOLLA—Some of your most important life partners are the mitochondria that power all your cells. You and these little cellular powerhouses are in a 1.5-billion-year-old evolutionary relationship—but mitochondria brought some baggage. Mitochondria brought their own DNA with them when they joined with the bigger, more complex cells so long ago, and today that mitochondrial DNA influences human health.
拉霍亚—索尔克分子生物学家 杰拉尔德-沙德尔博士, 神经科学家 塔季扬娜-沙佩（Tatyana Sharpee），博士、, 已被选为美国科学促进会（AAAS）2025年度会士。这项荣誉旨在表彰在科学和社会方面取得杰出成就的科学家，AAAS会士将终身担任国家和全球科学的代言人。.
加州拉霍亚—GLP-1 类药物正因其“神奇疗效”而声名鹊起。这类药物最初因能改善胰岛素释放和治疗糖尿病而闻名，后来又被发现能促进减肥和改善心血管健康。除了这些出人意料的额外益处外，GLP-1 类药物还能改善胰腺 β 细胞的健康。但它们究竟是如何做到这一点的呢？
拉霍亚—索尔克学会教员 约瑟夫·埃克尔,博士, 罗纳德·埃文斯, 博士，, 鲁斯蒂·盖奇,博士, 克里斯蒂安·梅塔洛, 博士，, 萨奇达南达·潘达, 博士，, 鲁本-肖, 博士，以及 凯泰, ，博士，以及研究助理约瑟夫·内里，都被提名为今年的 科睿唯安高被引研究员名单. 2025年榜单共有来自60个国家的6,868名研究人员，他们在各自的研究领域表现出“显著而广泛的影响力”。”
LA JOLLA — Malnutrition is responsible for more than half of all deaths in children under the age of five worldwide. Those who survive can still experience lifelong consequences like cognitive and developmental delays, impaired academic performance, economic instability, and negative maternal health outcomes. This enormous public health issue demands solutions. The latest studies point to gut microbiome—the diverse bacteria, viruses, and other microbes living in our intestines—as a great place to start.
拉霍亚——正如蜜蜂通过授粉和使花朵绽放来给予花园生命一样，一种名为线粒体的小型细胞机器也赋予我们的身体生命，它们嗡嗡作响地产生能量，为我们细胞的每一项功能提供动力。维持线粒体代谢需要许多分子和蛋白质的参与——其中一些仍有待发现。.
LA JOLLA—The obesity rate has more than doubled in the last 30 years, affecting more than one billion people worldwide. This prevalent condition is also linked to other metabolic disorders, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney disease, and cancers. Current treatment options include lifestyle interventions, bariatric surgery, and GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic or Wegovy, but many patients struggle to access or complete these treatments or to maintain their weight loss afterwards.
LA JOLLA—A new Salk Institute study suggests estrogen-related receptors could be a key to repairing energy metabolism and muscle fatigue.
LA JOLLA—Salk Institute Professor 萨奇达南达·潘达 has been named a semifinalist in the XPRIZE Healthspan competition. Panda’s team is known for its expertise in circadian rhythms, the body’s internal timetable that determines the timing of our behaviors, such as sleep and wakefulness, and almost every bodily function.
LA JOLLA—About one in eight adults in the United States has tried or currently uses a GLP-1 medication, and a quarter of those users cite weight loss as their main goal. But weight loss doesn’t discriminate between fat and muscle. Patients using GLP-1 drugs can experience rapid and substantial muscle loss, accounting for as much as 40% of their total weight loss. So how can we lose weight without also losing critical muscle?
LA JOLLA—Immunotherapy is a modern approach to cancer treatment that uses a patient’s own immune system to help fight tumors. It has made an incredible impact on treating cancers in many different organ systems, including the lung, kidney, and bladder—but for other cancers, such as liver cancer, the therapy has been much less effective. This discrepancy is especially concerning as liver cancer rates have nearly tripled in the last 40 years.
LA JOLLA—Like all cancers, bladder cancer develops when abnormal cells start to multiply out of control. But what if we could put a lid on their growth?
LA JOLLA—The decision between scrambled eggs or an apple for breakfast probably won’t make or break your day. However, for your cells, a decision between similar microscopic nutrients could determine their entire identity. If and how nutrient preference impacts cell identity has been a longstanding mystery for scientists—until a team of Salk Institute immunologists revealed a novel framework for the complicated relationship between nutrition and cell identity.
LA JOLLA—Excess cholesterol is known to form artery-clogging plaques that can lead to stroke, arterial disease, heart attack, and more, making it the focus of many heart health campaigns. Fortunately, this attention to cholesterol has prompted the development of cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins and lifestyle interventions like dietary and exercise regimens. But what if there’s more to the picture than just cholesterol?
LA JOLLA—More than one-third of adults in the United States have metabolic syndrome, a cluster of conditions that significantly raise a person’s risk of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. These conditions include high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar, excess abdominal fat, and abnormal cholesterol levels.
LA JOLLA—In 2014, the International Olympic Committee named a syndrome affecting many of its athletes: relative energy deficiency in sport, or REDs. It’s now estimated that more than 40% of professional athletes have REDs, and the rate could be even higher in recreational athletes and exercisers.
LA JOLLA—Cells in the human body contain power-generating mitochondria, each with their own mtDNA—a unique set of genetic instructions entirely separate from the cell’s nuclear DNA that mitochondria use to create life-giving energy. When mtDNA remains where it belongs (inside of mitochondria), it sustains both mitochondrial and cellular health—but when it goes where it doesn’t belong, it can initiate an immune response that promotes inflammation.
拉霍亚—索尔克教授 罗纳德·埃文斯 has been named the 2024 recipient of the Japan Prize in the field of Medical Science and Pharmaceutical Science. The Japan Prize Foundation awards this prestigious international award annually to “express Japan’s gratitude to international society.”
LA JOLLA—Each year in the United States there are more than 3 million cases of peripheral neuropathy, wherein nerves outside of the brain and spinal cord are damaged and cause pain and loss of feeling in the affected areas. Peripheral neuropathy can occur from diabetes, injury, genetically inherited disease, infection, and more. Salk scientists have now uncovered in mice a mechanism for repairing damaged nerves during peripheral neuropathy. They discovered that the protein Mitf helps turn on the repair function of specialized nervous system Schwann cells.
LA JOLLA—Immunotherapy, which uses the body’s own immune system to fight cancer, is an effective treatment option, yet many patients do not respond to it. Thus, cancer researchers are seeking new ways to optimize immunotherapy so that it is more effective for more people. Now, Salk Institute scientists have found that manipulating an early step in energy production in mitochondria—the cell’s powerhouses—reduces melanoma tumor growth and enhances the immune response in mice.
拉霍亚—近年来，50岁以下人群的结直肠癌发病率有所上升。一个可能的解释是肥胖率和高脂肪饮食的增加。现在，索尔克研究所和加州大学圣迭戈分校的研究人员发现，高脂肪饮食如何改变肠道细菌，并改变由这些细菌修饰的称为胆汁酸的消化分子，从而使小鼠易患结直肠癌。.
LA JOLLA—The Salk Institute and Autobahn Labs, an early-stage drug discovery incubator, will work together to identify and advance promising initial scientific discoveries through the preliminary steps of drug discovery and development. Autobahn Labs will invest up to $5 million per project for Salk discoveries that require access to drug development expertise and state-of-the art capabilities.
LA JOLLA—Five Salk Institute faculty members have been promoted for their notable, innovative contributions to science. These faculty members have demonstrated leadership in their disciplines, pushing the boundaries of basic scientific research. Assistant Professors 孙汉, Dmitry Lyumkis, ，和 Graham McVicker were promoted to associate professors, and Associate Professors 斯里坎特·查拉萨尼 和 叶正 were promoted to professors. The promotions were based on Salk faculty and nonresident fellow recommendations and approved by Salk’s president and Board of Trustees on April 21, 2023.
LA JOLLA—Scientists often act as detectives, piecing together clues that alone may seem meaningless but together crack the case. Professor 鲁本-肖 has spent nearly two decades piecing together such clues to understand the cellular response to metabolic stress, which occurs when cellular energy levels dip. Whether energy levels fall because the cell’s powerhouses (mitochondria) are failing or due to a lack of necessary energy-making supplies, the response is the same: get rid of the damaged mitochondria and create new ones.
拉霍亚—索尔克教授 克里斯蒂安·梅塔洛 has been recognized for his outstanding contributions to advancing science by being named the next holder of the Daniel and Martina Lewis Chair, effective January 1, 2023. Professor 杰弗里·沃尔 previously held this chair position.
LA JOLLA—As we age, the end caps of our chromosomes, called telomeres, gradually shorten. Now, Salk scientists have discovered that when telomeres become very short, they communicate with mitochondria, the cell’s powerhouses. This communication triggers a complex set of signaling pathways and initiates an inflammatory response that destroys cells that could otherwise become cancerous.
LA JOLLA—Approximately half of people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes experience peripheral neuropathy—weakness, numbness, and pain, primarily in the hands and feet. The condition occurs when high levels of sugar circulating in the blood damage peripheral nerves. Now, working with mice, Salk Institute researchers have identified another factor contributing to diabetes-associated peripheral neuropathy: altered amino acid metabolism.
拉霍亚——许多研究表明，限时进食具有健康益处，包括在实验室研究中延长寿命，这使得间歇性禁食等做法成为健康产业的热门话题。然而，它对身体在分子层面的影响以及这些变化如何在多个器官系统中相互作用，这一点尚未得到充分理解。现在，索尔克科学家们在小鼠身上展示了限时进食如何影响身体和大脑 22 个以上区域的基因表达。基因表达是基因被激活并通过产生蛋白质来响应其环境的过程。.
LA JOLLA—The San Diego Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging, a collaboration between the Salk Institute, UC San Diego, and Sanford Burnham Prebys, received new funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to enroll participants from the Rancho Bernardo Study of Healthy Aging into their own clinical cohort to study differences in how individuals age. Initiated 50 years ago by the late UC San Diego Distinguished Professor Elizabeth Barrett-Connor, the Rancho Bernardo Study is one of the longest, continuously NIH-funded studies in existence.
拉霍亚—消防员是我们社会的英雄，全天候保护着我们。但这些 24 小时的轮班工作对身体非常不利，并且会增加患心脏代谢疾病（如心脏病和糖尿病）以及癌症的风险。圣地亚哥消防局与索尔克研究所和加州大学圣地亚哥分校健康中心的科学家合作进行的一项临床试验发现，限时进食可以改善消防员的健康和福祉指标。这种生活方式干预措施仅要求消防员在 10 小时的时间窗口内进食，并且不涉及跳餐。.
LA JOLLA— Mitochondria are known as cells’ powerhouses, but mounting evidence suggests they also play a role in inflammation. Scientists from the Salk Institute and UC San Diego published new findings in 免疫 on August 2, 2022, where they examined human blood cells and discovered a surprising link between mitochondria, inflammation and DNMT3A and TET2—two genes that normally help regulate blood cell growth but, when mutated, are associated with an increased risk of atherosclerosis.
LA JOLLA–Whether it’s making rash decisions or feeling grumpy, hunger can make us think and act differently—“hangry,” even. But little is known about how hunger signals in the gut communicate with the brain to change behavior. Now, Salk scientists are using worms as a model to examine the molecular underpinnings and help explain how hunger makes an organism sacrifice comfort and make risky decisions to get a meal.
LA JOLLA—Every day, your pancreas produces about one cup of digestive juices, a mixture of molecules that can break down the food you eat. But if these powerful molecules become activated before they make their way to the gut, they can damage the pancreas itself—digesting the very cells that created them, leading to the painful inflammation known as pancreatitis, and predisposing a person to pancreatic cancer.
LA JOLLA—When mice with atopic dermatitis—a common type of allergic skin inflammation—are treated with drugs that target the immune system, their thickened, itchy skin generally heals quickly. But scientists have now discovered that the same treatment in obese mice makes their skin worse, instead. That is because obesity changes the molecular underpinnings of allergic inflammation, both in mice and humans.
拉霍亚—教授 罗纳德·埃文斯 will receive $1.2 million over four years as part of a Network Grant from the Larry L. Hillblom Foundation to examine a molecular pathway that regulates blood sugar and fat independent of insulin. The research will advance our understanding of type 2 diabetes and could lead to the development of new therapies for treating the disease. Other members of the team include Professors Jin Zhang and Alan Saltiel from the University of California San Diego.
LA JOLLA—The discovery of insulin 100 years ago opened a door that would lead to life and hope for millions of people with diabetes. Ever since then, insulin, produced in the pancreas, has been considered the primary means of treating conditions characterized by high blood sugar (glucose), such as diabetes. Now, Salk scientists have discovered a second molecule, produced in fat tissue, that, like insulin, also potently and rapidly regulates blood glucose. Their finding could lead to the development of new therapies for treating diabetes, and also lays the foundation for promising new avenues in metabolism research.
LA JOLLA—Salk Professors 乔安·乔里, 约瑟夫·埃克尔, 鲁斯蒂·盖奇, 萨奇达南达·潘达, 鲁本-肖 和 凯泰 have been named to the Highly Cited Researchers list by Clarivate. The list identifies researchers who demonstrate “significant influence in their chosen field or fields through the publication of multiple highly cited papers.” Chory, Ecker and Gage have been named to this list every year since 2014, when the regular annual rankings began. This is Tye’s fifth, Shaw’s third and Panda’s first time receiving the designation. Additionally, Ecker appeared in two separate categories: “plant and animal science” and “molecular biology and genetics” and is one of 3.4 percent of researchers selected in two fields. Joseph Nery, a research assistant II in the Ecker lab, was also included on the list.
加乔拉——限时进食（TRE）是一种将进食时间限制在特定时段内的饮食方式，在减肥领域受到越来越多的关注。索尔克科学家的一项新研究进一步表明，TRE 除了减肥之外，还具有多种健康益处。研究还表明，这些益处可能因性别和年龄而异。.
LA JOLLA—A Salk Institute team led by Professor 萨钦·潘达, along with teams from five other organizations, have been awarded a total of $220 million by the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation’s Human Performance Alliance, whose philanthropic investment aims to transform human health on a global scale through the discovery and translation of the biological principles underlying human performance.
LA JOLLA—Type 1 diabetes, which arises when the pancreas doesn’t create enough insulin to control levels of glucose in the blood, is a disease that currently has no cure and is difficult for most patients to manage. Scientists at the Salk Institute are developing a promising approach for treating it: using stem cells to create insulin-producing cells (called beta cells) that could replace nonfunctional pancreatic cells.
LA JOLLA—When cells are stressed, chemical alarms go off, setting in motion a flurry of activity that protects the cell’s most important players. During the rush, a protein called Parkin hurries to protect the mitochondria, the power stations that generate energy for the cell. Now Salk researchers have discovered a direct link between a master sensor of cell stress and Parkin itself. The same pathway is also tied to type 2 diabetes and cancer, which could open a new avenue for treating all three diseases.
LA JOLLA—The diabetes drug metformin—derived from a lilac plant that’s been used medicinally for more than a thousand years—has been prescribed to hundreds of millions of people worldwide as the frontline treatment for type 2 diabetes. Yet scientists don’t fully understand how the drug is so effective at controlling blood glucose.
拉霍亚—索尔克研究所的科学家们在追求安全有效的I型糖尿病治疗方法方面取得了重大进展。I型糖尿病影响着美国约160万人口，每年造成的经济损失高达$144亿美元。.
拉霍亚—据世界卫生组织称，慢性肝病是一个重大的全球公共卫生问题，估计有8.44亿人受到影响。它是澳大利亚、英国和美国的主要死亡原因之一。同时，它既难以管理，又没有获得FDA批准的抗纤维化肝脏疗法。微生物组——居住在肠道中的微生物的复杂集合——可能是一个意想不到的健康指标。现在，索尔克研究所和加州大学圣地亚哥分校的科学家们组成的合作团队创造了一种新颖的基于微生物组的诊断工具，该工具可以以最好的医生同等的准确性，在90%以上的情况下快速且廉价地识别出人类患者的肝纤维化和肝硬化。.
LA JOLLA—Salk and Scripps Research Institute scientists, along with collaborators at the pharmaceutical company Lundbeck, identified two genes that can regulate levels of healthy fats, called FAHFAs, in mice. The team found that the loss of the two genes led to higher-than-normal levels of the beneficial FAHFAs, while blocking the genes’ activity with an experimental drug also increased FAHFA levels.
LA JOLLA—Mitochondria, tiny structures present in most cells, are known for their energy-generating machinery. Now, Salk researchers have discovered a new function of mitochondria: they set off molecular alarms when cells are exposed to stress or chemicals that can damage DNA, such as chemotherapy. The results, published online in Nature Metabolism on December 9, 2019, could lead to new cancer treatments that prevent tumors from becoming resistant to chemotherapy.
LA JOLLA—Metabolic syndrome affects nearly 30 percent of the U.S. population, and increases the risk for type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke. But lifestyle interventions such as adopting a healthy diet and increasing physical exercise are difficult to maintain and, even when combined with medication, are often insufficient to fully manage the disease.
LA JOLLA—Approximately 1.25 million Americans are living with type 1 diabetes (T1D), with an additional 40,000 people newly diagnosed every year. T1D is an autoimmune disease that destroys insulin-producing pancreatic islet cells. Insulin is a hormone that allows sugar (glucose) to enter cells to produce energy. Without insulin, blood sugar accumulates, causing toxic side effects. Despite active research, T1D has no cure. While treatments, including daily insulin injections, are available, managing the disease remains challenging, and poorly controlled T1D can lead to blindness, organ failure and other health issues.
LA JOLLA—Scientists at the Salk Institute found that mice lacking the biological clocks thought to be necessary for a healthy metabolism could still be protected against obesity and metabolic diseases by having their daily access to food restricted to a 10-hour window.
LA JOLLA—We’ve all heard the expression: “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Now, research led by a Salk Institute scientist suggests why, at a cellular level, this might be true. The team reports that brief exposures to stressors can be beneficial by prompting the cell to trigger sustained production of antioxidants, molecules that help get rid of toxic cellular buildup related to normal metabolism.
LA JOLLA—A new study from the Salk Institute has found that mice that have their microbiomes depleted with antibiotics have decreased levels of glucose in their blood and better insulin sensitivity. The research has implications for understanding the role of the microbiome in diabetes. It also could lead to better insight into the side effects seen in people who are being treated with high levels of antibiotics. The study appeared in the journal Nature Communications on July 20, 2018.
LA JOLLA—One reason we’re supposed to eat a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables is because they contain nutritious compounds called antioxidants. These molecules counteract the damage to our bodies from harmful products of normal cells called reactive oxygen species (ROS).
LA JOLLA—More than 27 million people in the United States are living with type 2 diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As the population ages and a growing percentage of people become overweight or obese, that number is expected to increase.
LA JOLLA—While most fat cells in the human body store energy, everyone has a small subset of brown fat cells that do the opposite—burn energy and generate heat. Now, Salk researchers have discovered how the molecule ERRγ gives this “healthier” brown fat its energy-expending identity, making those cells ready to warm you up when you step into the cold, and potentially offering a new therapeutic target for diseases related to obesity. The paper appears in 细胞报告 on March 13, 2018.
LA JOLLA—If you’ve ever wondered how strenuous exercise translates into better endurance, researchers at the Salk Institute may have your answer. In a study published in the journal 细胞报告 on March 6, 2018, scientists in Ronald Evans’ lab have shown that the protein ERRγ (ERR gamma) helps deliver many of the benefits associated with endurance exercise.
拉霍亚——在危及生命的时刻，我们依靠消防员保护我们。因此，让他们保持健康和强壮符合每个人的最大利益。霍华德休斯医学研究所和加州大学圣地亚哥医学院的研究人员获得了$国土安全部提供的 150 万美元赠款，用于一项为期三年的研究，以评估将进食时间限制在 10 小时内是否能改善消防员的福祉。.
LA JOLLA—Minutes after you eat a meal, as nutrients rush into your bloodstream, your body makes massive shifts in how it breaks down and stores fats and sugars. Within half an hour, your liver has made a complete switch, going from burning fat for energy to storing as much glucose, or sugar, as possible. But the speed at which this happens has flummoxed scientists—it’s too short a time span for the liver’s cells to activate genes and produce the RNA blueprints needed to assemble new proteins to guide metabolism.
LA JOLLA—To everything there is a season. This saying applies to many human endeavors, but new research shows it’s even true on the molecular level. A Salk Institute study published in the journal 科学 on February 8, 2018, found that the activity of nearly 80 percent of genes follows a day/night rhythm in many tissue types and brain regions.
拉霍亚—索尔克研究所的科学家们创建了CRISPR/Cas9基因组编辑技术的一个新版本，该版本使他们能够在不破坏DNA的情况下激活基因，这可能克服使用基因编辑技术治疗人类疾病的一个主要障碍。.
LA JOLLA—Every week, there seems to be another story about the health benefits of running. That’s great—but what if you can’t run? For the elderly, obese or otherwise mobility-limited, the rewards of aerobic exercise have long been out of reach.
LA JOLLA—FedEx, UPS, DHL—when it comes to sending packages, choices abound. But the most important delivery service you may not have heard of? mRNA. That’s short for messenger RNA, which is how your DNA sends blueprints to the protein-assembly factories of your cells. When a protein is faulty, delivering synthetic mRNA to cells could trigger production of a functional version. And that’s a message people with a variety of genetic diseases want to hear.
LA JOLLA—At noon every day, levels of genes and proteins throughout your body are drastically different than they are at midnight. Disruptions to this 24-hour cycle of physiological activity are why jet lag or a bad night’s sleep can alter your appetite and sleep patterns for days—and even contribute to conditions like heart disease, sleep disorders and cancers.
LA JOLLA—A molecular pathway that is activated in the brain during fasting helps halt the spread of intestinal bacteria into the bloodstream, according to a new study by a team of researchers at the Salk Institute.
LA JOLLA—Salk scientists have solved a longstanding problem in the effort to create replacement cells for diabetic patients. The team uncovered a hidden energy switch that, when flipped, powers up pancreatic cells to respond to glucose, a step that eluded previous research. The result is the production of hundreds of millions of lab-produced human beta cells—able to relieve 糖尿病 in mice.
LA JOLLA—A team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies has discovered two enzymes that appear to play a role in metabolism and inflammation—and might someday be targeted with drugs to treat type 2 diabetes and inflammatory disorders.
LA JOLLA—Mitochondria, the power generators in our cells, are essential for life. When they are under attack—from poisons, environmental stress or genetic mutations—cells wrench these power stations apart, strip out the damaged pieces and reassemble them into usable mitochondria.
LA JOLLA—The Salk Institute has named Professor 鲁本-肖 as the new director of Salk’s National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center. Shaw is a member of Salk’s Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory and the holder of the William R. Brody Chair.
拉霍亚Diabetes is often the result of obesity and poor diet choices, but for some older adults the disease might simply be a consequence of aging. New research has discovered that diabetes—or insulin resistance—in aged, lean mice has a different cellular cause than the diabetes that results from weight gain (type 2). And the findings point toward a possible cure for what the co-leading scientists, 罗纳德·埃文斯 和 叶正, are now calling a new kind of diabetes (type 4).
LA JOLLA, CA—The Salk Institute will co-lead a new transatlantic ‘Dream Team’ of researchers that will launch a fresh attack on pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest forms of cancer on both sides of the Atlantic. Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C), Cancer Research UK, and The Lustgarten Foundation selected the team and will provide $12 million in funding over three years.
LA JOLLA–Breakfast, lunch and dinner? For too many of us, the three meals of the day go more like: morning meeting pastry, mid-afternoon energy drink and midnight pizza. In 细胞代谢 on September 24, Salk Institute scientists present daily food and beverage intake data collected from over 150 participants of a mobile research app over three weeks. They show that a majority of people eat for 15 hours or longer, with less than a quarter of the day’s calories being consumed before noon and over a third consumed after 6 p.m.
LA JOLLA–Healthy brain, muscle, eye and heart cells would improve the lives of tens of thousands of people around the world with debilitating mitochondrial diseases. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute have gotten one step closer to making such cures a reality: they’ve turned cells from patients into healthy, mutation-free stem cells that can then become any cell type. The new approach is described July 15, 2015 in 自然.
LA JOLLA–Mice that have a genetic version of mitochondrial disease can easily be mistaken for much older animals by the time they are nine months old: they have thinning grey hair, osteoporosis, poor hearing, infertility, heart problems and have lost weight. Despite having this disease at birth, these mice have a “secret weapon” in their youth that staves off signs of aging for a time.
LA JOLLA–A study tying the aging process to the deterioration of tightly packaged bundles of cellular DNA could lead to methods of preventing and treating age-related diseases such as cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease, as detailed April 30, 2015, in 科学.
LA JOLLA–For thousands of women around the globe carrying a mitochondrial disease, having a healthy child can be a gamble. This set of diseases affect mitochondria, tiny powerhouses that generate energy in the body’s cells and are passed exclusively from mother to child.
LA JOLLA–Salk researchers have developed an entirely new type of pill that tricks the body into thinking it has consumed calories, causing it to burn fat. The compound effectively stopped weight gain, lowered cholesterol, controlled blood sugar and minimized inflammation in mice, making it an excellent candidate for a rapid transition into human clinical trials.
LA JOLLA–These days, with the abundance of artificial light, TV, tablets and smartphones, adults and children alike are burning the midnight oil. What they are not burning is calories: with later bedtimes comes the tendency to eat.
LA JOLLA–Scientists at the Salk Institute and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston have discovered a new class of molecules–produced in human and mouse fat–that protects against 糖尿病.
LA JOLLA—In mice with diet-induced diabetes—the equivalent of type 2 糖尿病 in humans—a single injection of the protein FGF1 is enough to restore blood sugar levels to a healthy range for more than two days. The discovery by Salk scientists, published today in the journal 自然, could lead to a new generation of safer, more effective diabetes drugs.
LA JOLLA—The Salk Institute is pleased to welcome a new full professor and three new assistant professors, all exceptional leaders in their respective fields. The new faculty will facilitate innovative and collaborative breakthroughs in understanding human health and disease.
LA JOLLA—For most people, the urge to eat a meal or snack comes at a few, predictable times during the waking part of the day. But for those with a rare syndrome, hunger comes at unwanted hours, interrupts sleep and causes overeating.
LA JOLLA—The Salk Institute has received a $3 million gift from the 格伦医学研究基金会 to allow the Institute to continue conducting research to understand the biology of normal human aging and age-related diseases.
拉霍亚鲁本-肖, a member of the Salk Institute’s 分子与细胞生物学实验室 and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute early career scientist, has been promoted from associate professor to full professor.
After a rigorous evaluation process by Salk senior faculty, nonresident fellows and scientific peers, the promotion was announced Friday.
LA JOLLA, CA—A new approach to mapping how proteins interact with each other, developed at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, could aid in the design of new drugs for diseases such as 糖尿病 and osteoporosis. By reengineering proteins using artificial amino acids, the Salk scientists determine the detailed molecular structure of a cellular
switch and its ligand, the molecule that turns it on. The switch—corticotrophin releasing factor type 1
(CRF1R)—belongs to a class of cellular receptors whose structures are notoriously hard to determine. These receptors regulate processes throughout the body and are involved in many diseases.
LA JOLLA, CA—The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) has given Salk scientist Mark Huising a five-year, $750,000 Career Development Award for his proposed study on how a novel network of receptors in human islets receives and integrates molecular signals. In pre-clinical models, activation of these receptors has proven to actually prevent diabetes. Career Development Awards are highly competitive and bestowed upon only a handful of people each year.
圣地亚哥，拉霍亚—美国癌症研究协会（AACR）是世界上历史最悠久、规模最大的致力于加速科学进步以预防和治愈癌症的专业组织，该协会已选出四名索尔克科学家和两名研究所的客座研究员，将他们纳入首届AACR学院院士。.
LA JOLLA, CA—A team of scientists, including researchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, has discovered that a drug used to treat canker sores appears to reverse obesity in mice. The findings, published February 10 in 自然医学, may lead to new weight-loss medications that could have an impact on growing obesity and diabetes rates in the United States.
The drug, amlexanox, has been on the market for more than 15 years. Different formulations of the drug are used in Japan to treat asthma and in the United States to treat canker sores. Human clinical trials for weight loss are expected to begin later this year.
LA JOLLA, CA—You might think you have nothing in common with mustard except hotdogs. Yet based on research in a plant from the mustard family, Salk scientists have discovered a possible explanation for how organisms, including humans, directly regulate chemical reactions that quickly adjust the growth of organs. These findings overturn conventional views of how different body parts coordinate their growth, shedding light on the development of more productive plants and new therapies for metabolic diseases.
LA JOLLA, CA—Ever since discovering a decade ago that a gene altered in lung cancer regulated an enzyme used in therapies against diabetes, 鲁本-肖 has wondered if drugs originally designed to treat metabolic diseases could also work against cancer.
LA JOLLA, CA—The Salk Institute for Biological Studies has received a $42 million gift-the largest in the Institute’s history-to establish the Helmsley Center for Genomic Medicine (HCGM), a research center dedicated to decoding the common genetic factors underlying many complex chronic human diseases.
LA JOLLA, CA—When it’s dark, and we start to fall asleep, most of us think we’re tired because our bodies need rest. Yet circadian rhythms affect our bodies not just on a global scale, but at the level of individual organs, and even genes.
LA JOLLA, CA—Growing evidence suggests that there may be a link between 糖尿病 和 Alzheimer’s disease, but the physiological mechanisms by which diabetes impacts brain function and cognition are not fully understood. In a new study published in Aging Cell, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies show, for the first time, that diabetes enhances the development of aging features that may underlie early pathological events in Alzheimer’s.
LA JOLLA, CA—Scientists have known for some time that throwing off the body's circadian rhythm can negatively affect body chemistry. In fact, workers whose sleep-wake cycles are disrupted by night shifts are more susceptible to chronic inflammatory diseases such as diabetes, obesity and cancer.
LA JOLLA, CA—With their potential to treat a wide range of diseases and uncover fundamental processes that lead to those diseases, embryonic stem (ES) cells hold great promise for biomedical science. A number of hurdles, both scientific and non-scientific, however, have precluded scientists from reaching the holy grail of using these special cells to treat heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and other diseases.
LA JOLLA, CA—It turns out that when we eat may be as important as what we eat. Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have found that regular eating times and extending the daily fasting period may override the adverse health effects of a high-fat diet and prevent obesity, diabetes and liver disease in mice.
LA JOLLA, CA—Humans are built to hunger for fat, packing it on during times of feast and burning it during periods of famine. But when deluged by foods rich in fat and sugar, the modern waistline often far exceeds the need to store energy for lean times, and the result has been an epidemic of diabetes, heart disease and other obesity-related problems.
加州拉霍亚 — 在其深入解码人类新陈代谢的非凡探索中，索尔克生物研究所的研究人员发现了一对调节肝脏葡萄糖生成的分子——葡萄糖是人类细胞的能量来源，也是糖尿病的关键因素。.
LA JOLLA, CA—The discovery of a major gear in the biological clock that tells the body when to sleep and metabolize food may lead to new drugs to treat sleep problems and metabolic disorders, including diabetes.
LA JOLLA, CA—Faculty members Reuben Shaw and Lei Wang, have been promoted to the position of Associate Professor at the Salk Institute after a rigorous evaluation process by Salk senior faculty, Non-Resident Fellows, and scientific peers. The career milestone distinguishes these two investigators as leading authorities in their respective disciplines who have made original, innovative and notable contributions to biological research.
LA JOLLA, CA—Salk Institute scientist 罗纳德·埃文斯 has been selected as the recipient of the prestigious 2012 Wolf Prize in Medicine, Israel’s highest award for achievements benefiting mankind. According to the Wolf Prize jury, Evans was selected for his discovery of the gene super-family encoding nuclear receptors and elucidating the mechanism of action of this class of receptors.
拉霍亚，加州——科学家们发现了一条连接人体生物钟与糖代谢系统的“缺失环节”，这一发现可能有助于避免用于治疗哮喘、过敏和关节炎的药物产生的严重副作用。.
