EurekAlert! InContext Modules

Public Release: 24-May-2013

Journal of Clinical Investigation
New fluorescent tools for cancer diagnosis
In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Thomas Tuschl and colleagues at Rockefeller University developed a multicolor fluorescence labeling method that can be used to visualize miRNAs in tissue sections, such as those recovered from biopsies.

National Center for Research Resources, National Institutes of Health, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Rockefeller University

Public Release: 23-May-2013
Using big data to identify prostate cancers and best treatments
Some prostate cancer patients unnecessarily undergo surgery or harsh treatments because science fails to identify the differences between slow-growing and aggressive forms of the disease. Researchers at Case Western Reserve University and Johns Hopkins Medical Institutes are developing technology that allows patients to safely choose to do nothing, opt for relatively mild treatments or take drastic measures.

Public Release: 21-May-2013
EMBO announces 52 new members for 2013
EMBO announced today that 52 outstanding researchers in the life sciences were newly elected to its membership. 43 of the researchers reside in Europe and neighboring countries and are accompanied by the election of nine Associate Members from Canada, China, India, Japan and the United States. The EMBO membership currently comprises around 1,600 life scientists.

Public Release: 21-May-2013

Cell Metabolism
Insight into the dazzling impact of insulin in cells
Australian scientists have charted the path of insulin action in cells in precise detail like never before. This provides a comprehensive blueprint for understanding what goes wrong in diabetes. The breakthrough study, conducted by Sean Humphrey and Professor David James from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research, is now published in the early online edition of the prestigious journal Cell Metabolism.

National Health and Medical Research Council

Public Release: 20-May-2013

Marine Ecology Progress Series
Abundance and distribution of Hawaiian coral species predicted by model
Researchers from the University of Hawaii, Manoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology developed species distribution models of the six dominant Hawaiian coral species around the main Hawaiian Islands, including two species currently under consideration as threatened or endangered.

National Marine Sanctuary Program, Environmental Protection Agency, National Science Foundation

Contact: Marcie Grabowski
mworkman@hawaii.edu
808-956-3151
University of Hawaii ‑ SOEST

Public Release: 20-May-2013

ACS Nano
Penn research makes advance in nanotech gene sequencing technique
The allure of personalized medicine has made new, more efficient ways of sequencing genes a top research priority. One promising technique involves reading DNA bases using changes in electrical current as they are threaded through a nanoscopic hole. Now, a team led by University of Pennsylvania physicists has used solid-state nanopores to differentiate single-stranded DNA molecules containing sequences of a single repeating base.

National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health

Public Release: 20-May-2013

American Society for Microbiology 2013 General Meeting
CosmosID unveils new tool for faster, specific and accurate testing of probiotics products
The FDA and CosmosID have conducted a side-by-side analysis of commercially available probiotics to compare the identity of species and strains present in the products to what was stated on their respective labels.

Public Release: 15-May-2013
The DOE Joint Genome Institute expands capabilities via new partnerships
Positioning itself to provide the most current technology and expertise to their users in order to address pressing energy and environmental scientific challenges, the DOE Joint Genome Institute announces six projects with which to launch the Emerging Technologies Opportunity Program. These new partnerships span the development of new scalable DNA synthesis technologies to the latest approaches to high throughput sequencing and characterization of single microbial cells from complex environmental samples.

DOE Office of Science

Public Release: 14-May-2013

Genome Biology and Evolution
Mining the botulinum genome
Scientists at the Institute of Food Research have been mining the genome of C. botulinum to uncover new information about the toxin genes that produce the potent toxin behind botulism.

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council

Public Release: 14-May-2013

Science Signaling
But what does it do?
It is now easier to pinpoint exactly what molecules a phosphatase -- a type of protein that's essential for cells to react to their environment -- acts upon in human cells, thanks to the free online database DEPOD, created by EMBL scientists. Published today in Science Signaling, the overview of interactions could even help explain unforeseen side-effects of drugs.

European Molecular Biology Laboratory & Marie Curie Actions, German Science Foundation

Public Release: 13-May-2013

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Out of sync with the world: Body clocks of depressed people are altered at cell level
Every cell in our bodies runs on a 24-hour clock, tuned to the night-day, light-dark cycles that have ruled us since the dawn of humanity. But new research shows that the clock may be broken in the brains of people with depression -- even at the level of the gene activity inside their brain cells.

Neuropsychiatric Disorders Research Fund, NIH/National Institute of Mental Health, Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, Office of Naval Research

Public Release: 12-May-2013

Nature
Non-inherited mutations account for many heart defects, Yale researchers find
New mutations that are absent in parents but appear in their offspring account for at least 10 percent of severe congenital heart disease, reveals a massive genomics study led, in part, by researchers at the Yale School of Medicine.

National Institutes of Health

Public Release: 10-May-2013

Nature Climate Change
GBIF enables global forecast of climate impacts on species
Climate change could dramatically reduce the geographic ranges of thousands of common plant and animal species during this century, according to research using data made freely available online through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Public Release: 9-May-2013
Australian statistician elected Fellow of the Royal Society
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute researcher Professor Terry Speed has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society, the UK's national academy promoting excellence in science.

Public Release: 9-May-2013

PLOS Computational Biology
Early infant growth rate linked to composition of gut microbiota
The composition of gut microbiota in a new-born baby's gut has been linked to the rate of early infant growth, reports research published this week in PLOS Computational Biology. The findings support the assertion that the early development of "microbiota" -- the body's microbial ecosystem -- in an infant can influence growth and thereby the likelihood of obesity.

Norwegian Research Council, NIH/Intramural Research Program

Public Release: 8-May-2013

BMC Evolutionary Biology
George Washington University biologist maps the family tree of all known snake and lizard groups
A George Washington University biologist and a team of researchers have created the first large-scale evolutionary family tree for every snake and lizard around the globe.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 8-May-2013
Thijn Brummelkamp receives the EMBO Gold Medal for 2013
EMBO today announced Thijn Brummelkamp of the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam as the winner of the 2013 EMBO Gold Medal. The award acknowledges his outstanding work to accelerate the genetic analysis of human disease.

European Molecular Biology Organization

Public Release: 7-May-2013

Cell Death & Disease
Study: MicroRNA cooperation mutes breast cancer oncogenes
"Imagine you have a microRNA that regulates genes A and B. Then you have another microRNA that regulates genes B and C. You amplify each microRNA to a degree that doesn't effect gene A or C, but their combined effect regulates gene B," says Bolin Liu, M.D., assistant professor in the Department of Pathology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Public Release: 6-May-2013

ACS Nano
A KAIST research team developed in vivo flexible large scale integrated circuits
A team led by Professor Keon Jae Lee from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at KAIST has developed in vivo silicon-based flexible large scale integrated circuits for bio-medical wireless communication.

Public Release: 5-May-2013

Nature Methods
A new cost-effective genome assembly process
Genome assembly, the molecular equivalent of trying to put together a multi-million piece jigsaw puzzle without knowing what the picture on the cover of the box is, remains challenging due to the very large number of very small pieces, which must be assembled using current approaches. As reported May 5 online in the journal Nature Methods, a collaboration involving DOE JGI researchers has resulted in an improved and fully automated workflow for genome assembly.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 2-May-2013
Plant geneticist elected member of country's first learned society
Renowned geneticist Susan Wessler at the University of California, Riverside has been elected a member of the American Philosophical Society, founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin for the purpose of "promoting useful knowledge." Wessler holds a University of California President's Chair and is a distinguished professor of genetics in the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences. Wessler's research focuses on plant transposable elements and their role in the evolution of plant genomes.

American Philosophical Society

Public Release: 2-May-2013

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Researchers find active transporters are universally leaky
Illinois professor of biochemistry Emad Tajkhorshid and his team found that as active transporters in cell membranes undergo conformational changes to allow their main substrates to pass through through, small molecules like water slip through as well.

Public Release: 2-May-2013

Nature
3D simulation shows how form of complex organs evolves by natural selection
Researchers at the Institute of Biotechnology at the Helsinki University and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona have developed the first three-dimensional simulation of the evolution of morphology by integrating the mechanisms of genetic regulation that take place during embryo development.

Public Release: 1-May-2013

Nature Genetics
New genetic clues to breast and ovarian cancer
A major international study involving a Simon Fraser University scientist has found that sequence differences in a gene crucial to the maintenance of our chromosomes' integrity predispose us to certain cancers. Nature Genetics published the study on March 27, 2013.

Public Release: 30-Apr-2013
UC Riverside plant cell biologist elected to the National Academy of Sciences
Xuemei Chen, a professor of plant cell and molecular biology at UC Riverside has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences for her excellence in original scientific research. Membership in the NAS is one of the highest honors given to a scientist or engineer in the United States. Xuemei has made pioneering contributions to our understanding of how cells in an undifferentiated meristem of a plant shoot ultimately form a flower.

National Academy of Sciences


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