http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Human pluripotent stem cells, which can develop into any cell type in the body, rely heavily on glycolysis, or sugar fermentation, to drive their metabolic activities. http://phys.org/news240576066.html Biology Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:41:20 EST news240576066 Researchers at then Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have uncovered a mechanism that governs how cells become specialized during development. Their findings could have implications for human health and disease and appear in the November 10 online edition of the journal Cell. http://phys.org/news240167675.html Biology Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:20:49 EST news240167675 A protein called "fascin" appears to play a critical transformation role in TGF beta mediated tumor metastasis, say researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., who published a study in a recent issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. http://phys.org/news240065690.html Chemistry Wed, 09 Nov 2011 12:55:01 EST news240065690 Chinese stem cell scientists have published new research that improves the survival and effectiveness of transplanted stem cells. The research led by Dr Hsiao Chang Chan, from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, is published in Stem Cells. http://phys.org/news239516460.html Biology Thu, 03 Nov 2011 05:21:08 EST news239516460 Researchers from the Haematopoietic Differentiation and Stem Cell Biology group at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), have described one of the mechanisms by which a cell (from the skin, for example) can be converted into another which is completely different (e.g., a neuron or hepatic cell). They have discovered that the cell transcription factor C/EBPα is a determinant factor in cell transdifferentiation. This differentiation mechanism can be applied to any of the cells of an organism. The scope of the study, published in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences (PNAS), could profoundly influence the development of cell therapies. In all tissues, stem cells specialise to produce very different cell types. http://phys.org/news236887062.html Biology Mon, 03 Oct 2011 18:57:57 EST news236887062 Researchers have engineered new sensors that fluoresce in the presence of compounds that interact with estrogen receptors in human cells. The sensors detect natural or human-made substances that alter estrogenic signaling in the body. http://phys.org/news233496647.html Biology Thu, 25 Aug 2011 13:11:06 EST news233496647 (PhysOrg.com) -- Cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, have been the subject of decades of debate over exactly how they should be classified. While they reproduce and share DNA with their bacterial cousins, they are the only phylum of bacteria that can photosynthesize like plants. http://phys.org/news229267727.html Biology Thu, 07 Jul 2011 14:29:10 EST news229267727 Scientists from the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), an institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), in collaboration with the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI), have discovered how the body uses a single communication system to decide the fate of stem cells. The study, published in the scientific journal PLoS Genetics on 23rd June 2011, paves the way for the development of new methods of stem cell therapy with fewer side effects. http://phys.org/news228127873.html Biology Fri, 24 Jun 2011 09:51:27 EST news228127873 Stem cell technologies have been proposed for cell-based diagnostics and regenerative medicine therapies. However, being able to make stem cells efficiently develop into a desired cell type -- such as muscle, skin, blood vessels, bone or neurons -- limits the clinical potential of these technologies. http://phys.org/news227450361.html Biology Thu, 16 Jun 2011 14:00:01 EST news227450361 (PhysOrg.com) -- Using a new technique in which models of primitive cells are constructed from the bottom up, scientists have demonstrated that the structure of a cell's membrane and cytoplasm may be as important to cell division as the specialized machinery -- such as enzymes, DNA or RNA -- which are found within living cells. Christine Keating, an associate professor of chemistry at Penn State University, and Meghan Andes-Koback, a graduate student in the Penn State Department of Chemistry, generated simple, non-living model "cells" with which they established that asymmetric division -- the process by which a cell splits to become two distinct daughter cells -- is possible even in the absence of complex cellular components, such as genes. The study, which will be published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, may provide important clues to how life originated from non-life and how modern cells came to exhibit complex behaviors. http://phys.org/news224953971.html Chemistry Wed, 18 May 2011 16:13:23 EST news224953971 The finding establishes a role for the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) signaling pathway in B cell differentiation, a key step toward the development of B cell-targeted drugs for treatment of autoimmune diseases and allergies. http://phys.org/news222681625.html Medicine & Health Fri, 22 Apr 2011 09:00:42 EST news222681625 Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are highly regarded for their ability to give rise to the full range of cellular lineages found in the adult body, but left to their own devices ESCs tend to differentiate into neural lineages. Researchers from RIKEN have revealed how the nuclear protein Zfp521 is key to the default neural fate. http://phys.org/news219490898.html Biology Wed, 16 Mar 2011 10:42:17 EST news219490898 A tremendous amount of genetics research has been done in flies and tiny worms, in part because scientists have good tools for tweaking these creatures’ DNA. Now, by adapting a powerful method of RNA interference for use in mice, researchers have identified key pathways that cause skin cells to differentiate, eventually forming the flexible but protective outer casing of the body. The work, published February 17 by Nature, illustrates the potential for performing relatively fast and complex genetic studies in a fellow mammal, and also provides a deeper understanding of cell differentiation in early development. http://phys.org/news218368257.html Biology Thu, 03 Mar 2011 09:51:24 EST news218368257 A new study sheds light on why individuals who inherit a particular family of mutations have a high risk of developing a very aggressive form of breast cancer. The research, published by Cell Press on February 4th in the journal Cell Stem Cell, shows that breast tissue cells from these individuals make abnormal cell-fate decisions even before cancer develops and provides exciting new insights into the mechanisms behind one of the most lethal types of breast cancer. http://phys.org/news215960299.html Medicine & Health Thu, 03 Feb 2011 13:30:09 EST news215960299 Cardiac researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have found a new cellular pathway that could help in developing therapeutic treatments for obesity-related disorders, like diabetes and heart disease. http://phys.org/news209143144.html Medicine & Health Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:00:01 EST news209143144 Biologists at Tufts University School of Arts and Sciences have discovered that a change in membrane voltage in newly identified "instructor cells" can cause stem cells' descendants to trigger melanoma-like growth in pigment cells. The Tufts team also found that this metastatic transformation is due to changes in serotonin transport. The discovery could aid in the prevention and treatment of diseases like cancer and vitiligo as well as birth defects. http://phys.org/news206680770.html Medicine & Health Tue, 19 Oct 2010 04:20:00 EST news206680770 Many scientists aspire to take control over the stem cell differentiation process, so that we can grow organs and implants perfectly matched to each patient in the future. Now research in the Journal of Tissue Engineering explains how engineering the topography on which stem cells grow, and the mechanical forces working on them, can be as powerful an agent for change as their chemical environment. http://phys.org/news205671182.html Biology Thu, 07 Oct 2010 11:53:18 EST news205671182 A researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, together with Israeli and foreign collaborators, has revealed how physical qualities -- and not only chemical ones - may have an influence in determining how adult stem cells from the bone marrow develop into differentiated ones. This represents an important step in understanding the mechanisms that direct and regulate the specialization of stem cells from their undefined state. http://phys.org/news203076893.html Physics Tue, 07 Sep 2010 11:15:08 EST news203076893 (PhysOrg.com) -- In the pursuit of biologically active compounds, it is often necessary to be able to control the stereochemistry at predefined positions in a molecular skeleton. The search for ways to prepare chiral building blocks with known configuration that also show structural differentiation is important. http://phys.org/news202624585.html Chemistry Thu, 02 Sep 2010 05:36:59 EST news202624585 The first successful report of using cell-depleted lung as a natural growth matrix for generating new rat lung from embryonic stem cells is presented in a breakthrough article in Tissue Engineering, Part A, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. http://phys.org/news201450658.html Medicine & Health Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:50:02 EST news201450658 A team of scientists at the University of California, Davis and the University of Auckland has discovered that neuroglobin may protect against Alzheimer's disease by preventing brain neurons from dying in response to natural stress. The team published the results of their study in the April, 2010 issue of Apoptosis. http://phys.org/news199978777.html Medicine & Health Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:40:04 EST news199978777 Within 24 hours of culturing adult human stem cells on a new type of matrix, University of Michigan researchers were able to make predictions about how the cells would differentiate, or what type of tissue they would become. Their results are published in the Aug. 1 edition of Nature Methods. http://phys.org/news199885917.html Biology Sun, 01 Aug 2010 13:00:06 EST news199885917 (PhysOrg.com) -- Investigators at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Regenerative Medicine have confirmed that induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) retain some characteristics of the cells from which they were derived, something that could both assist and impede potential clinical and research uses. In their report that will be published in Nature Biotechnology and has received early online release, the researchers also describe finding that these cellular "memories" fade and disappear as cell lines are cultured through successive generations. http://phys.org/news198772872.html Biology Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:41:30 EST news198772872 Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have identified a mechanism that could explain how patients move into the worst phase of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). http://phys.org/news198572075.html Medicine & Health Sun, 18 Jul 2010 13:00:09 EST news198572075 (PhysOrg.com) -- A mechanism that regulates stem-cell differentiation in mice testes suggests a similar process that may trigger degenerative disease in humans, according to a Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences reproductive physiologist. http://phys.org/news196692783.html Biology Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:54:37 EST news196692783 Fructose, the sugar widely used as high-fructose corn syrup in soft drinks and processed foods, often gets some of the blame for the widespread rise in obesity. Now a laboratory study has found that when fructose is present as children's fat cells mature, it makes more of these cells mature into fat cells in belly fat and less able to respond to insulin in both belly fat and fat located below the skin. http://phys.org/news196347682.html Medicine & Health Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:20:01 EST news196347682 (PhysOrg.com) -- New research led by University College Dublin Conway Fellow, Professor Johan Ericsson has identified a key regulator of fat cell differentiation that may be a novel target for obesity drugs. The results of the research are published in the current edition of a leading scientific journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). http://phys.org/news195803576.html Medicine & Health Tue, 15 Jun 2010 07:20:01 EST news195803576 A new paper by a team of researchers led by University of Notre Dame biologist Jeffrey Feder could herald an important shift in thinking about the genomics of speciation. http://phys.org/news192726206.html Biology Mon, 10 May 2010 16:03:43 EST news192726206 Scientists at the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) have recently generated significant single cell expression data crucial for a detailed molecular understanding of mammalian development from fertilization to embryo implantation, a process known as the preimplantation period. The knowledge gained has a direct impact on clinical applications in the areas of regenerative medicine and assisted reproduction. http://phys.org/news191061201.html Biology Wed, 21 Apr 2010 09:50:02 EST news191061201 (PhysOrg.com) -- Multipotent stem cells have the capacity to develop into different types of cells by reprogramming their DNA to turn on different combinations of genes, a process called "differentiation." In a new study, researchers from the Carnegie Institution for Science have found that reprogramming is imperfect in the early stages of differentiation, with some genes turned on and off at random. As cell divisions continue, the stability of the differentiation process increases by a factor of 100. The finding will help scientists understand how stem cells reprogram their genes and why fully differentiated cells are very hard to reprogram, knowledge with potential impacts on aging, regenerative medicine, and cancer research. http://phys.org/news189697569.html Biology Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:00:19 EST news189697569