News by Subject Biology

The PIM-2 protein kinase negatively regulates T cell responses in transplantation and tumor immunity, while PIM-1 and PIM-3 are positive regulators, report Medical University of South Carolina investigators in The Journal of Clinical Investigation. Blocking PIM-2 in allogeneic bone marrow transplant dramatically accelerated graft-versus-host disease. In adoptive immunotherapy with autologous T cells, silencing PIM-2 on T cells produced robust tumor immunity, highlighting the importance of PIM-specific inhibition.

Purdue University researchers have identified a new compound that in preliminary testing has shown itself to be as effective as antibiotics approved by the FDA to treat life-threatening infections while also appearing to be less susceptible to bacterial resistance. The compound has been potent against antibiotic-resistant pathogens such as MRSA, which is often found in hospitals and other health care settings, and vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus, with vancomycin long considered a drug of last resort.

Waste oil from orange, tea tree and eucalyptus essential oil production mixed with diesel provides a sweet-smelling biofuel blend with comparable performance to diesel-only fuel.

For decades, biologists have believed a key enzyme in plants had one function -- produce amino acids, which are vital to plant survival and also essential to human diets. But for Wellington Muchero, Meng Xie and their colleagues, this enzyme does more than advertised. They had run a series of experiments on poplar plants that consistently revealed mutations in a structure of the life-sustaining enzyme that was not previously known to exist.

New study from the University of Copenhagen reports that political discussions about genetically modified foods have ignored concerns among Danes that GM foods are 'unnatural'. This is very regrettable, according to Jesper Lassen, a researcher who has investigated public attitudes about genetic modification for the past 25 years.

Modern alchemists are trying to replace precious metals with greener, cheaper alternatives. Princeton Chemistry Professor Paul Chirik and his team have synthesized an epilepsy medication using one-electron oxidation that replaces rhodium and dichloromethane with the much greener cobalt and methanol. "Earth-abundant catalysts [can] not only replace the precious metal ones, but they offer distinct advantages," said Chirik, including "new chemistry that no one's ever seen before" and "a reduced environmental footprint."

Researchers have demonstrated that a novel biocompatible adhesive made of two naturally derived polymers is 15 times stronger than adhesive materials currently used for nerve reconstruction and can support the survival, extension, and proliferation of cells essential for nerve regeneration.