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Interview with a Scientist —Julius Lucks: Shape Seeker
While DNA acts as the hard drive of the cell, storing the instructions to make all of the proteins the cell needs to carry out its various duties, another type of genetic material, RNA, takes on a wide variety of tasks, including gene regulation, protein synthesis, and sensing of metals and metabolites. Each of these jobs is handled by a slightly different molecule of RNA. But what determines which job a certain RNA molecule is tasked with? Primarily its shape. Julius Lucks, a biological and chemical engineer at Northwestern University, and his team study the many ways in which RNA can bend itself into new shapes and how t...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - July 18, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Chris Palmer Tags: Being a Scientist Genetics RNA Source Type: blogs

Interview with a Scientist: Julius Lucks, Shape Seeker
While DNA acts as the hard drive of the cell, storing the instructions to make all of the proteins the cell needs to carry out its various duties, another type of genetic material, RNA, takes on a wide variety of tasks, including gene regulation, protein synthesis, and sensing of metals and metabolites. Each of these jobs is handled by a slightly different molecule of RNA. But what determines which job a certain RNA molecule is tasked with? Primarily its shape. Julius Lucks, a biological and chemical engineer at Northwestern University, and his team study the many ways in which RNA can bend itself into new shapes and how t...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - July 18, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Chris Palmer Tags: Being a Scientist Genetics RNA Source Type: blogs

Interview with a Scientist —Elhanan Borenstein: Metagenomics Systems Biology
Cataloging the human microbiome—the complete collection of bacteria, fungi, archaea, protists, and viruses that live in and on our bodies—is an enormous task. Most estimates put the number of organisms who call us home on par with the number of our own cells. Imagine trying to figure out how the billions of critters influence each other and, ultimately, impact our health. Elhanan Borenstein, a computer scientist-cum-genomicist at the University of Washington, and his team are not only tackling this difficult challenge, they are also trying to obtain a systems-level understanding of the collective effect of all of the g...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - July 11, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Steve Constantinides Tags: Being a Scientist Cell Biology Bacteria Microbiome Source Type: blogs

Interview with a Scientist: Elhanan Borenstein, Metagenomics Systems Biology
Cataloging the human microbiome—the complete collection of bacteria, fungi, archaea, protists, and viruses that live in and on our bodies—is an enormous task. Most estimates put the number of organisms who call us home on par with the number of our own cells. Imagine trying to figure out how the billions of critters influence each other and, ultimately, impact our health. Elhanan Borenstein, a computer scientist-cum-genomicist at the University of Washington, and his team are not only tackling this difficult challenge, they are also trying to obtain a systems-level understanding of the collective effect of all of the g...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - July 11, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Steve Constantinides Tags: Being a Scientist Cell Biology Bacteria Microbiome Source Type: blogs

Molecular Fireworks: How Microtubules Form Inside Cells
       Microtubules sprout from one another. Credit: Petry lab, Princeton University. The red spray pictured here may look like fireworks erupting across the night sky on July 4th, but it’s actually a rare glimpse of tiny protein strands called microtubules sprouting and growing from one another in a lab. Microtubules are the largest of the molecules that form a cell’s skeleton. When a cell divides, microtubules help ensure that each daughter cell has a complete set of genetic information from the parent. They also help organize the cell’s interior and even act as miniature highways for certain proteins to travel...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - July 3, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Kathryn Calkins Tags: Cell Biology Cells Cellular Imaging Cellular Processes Cool Images Source Type: blogs

Interview With a Scientist: Andrew Goodman, Separating Causation and Correlation in the Microbiome
You’ve likely heard some variation of the statistic that there are at least as many microbial cells in our body as human cells. You may have also heard that the microscopic bugs that live in our guts, on our skins, and every crevice they can find, collectively referred to as the human microbiome, are implicated in human health. But do these bacteria, fungi, archaea, protists, and viruses cause disease, or are the specific populations of microbes inside us a result of our state of health? That’s the question that drives the research in the lab of Andrew Goodman , associate professor of microbial pathogenesis at Yale Uni...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - June 27, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Steve Constantinides Tags: Being a Scientist Cell Biology Bacteria Microbiome Source Type: blogs

Best Documentary: Cells Record Their Own Lives Using CRISPR
Suppose you were a police detective investigating a robbery. You’d appreciate having a stack of photographs of the crime in progress, but you’d be even happier if you had a detailed movie of the robbery. Then, you could see what happened and when. Research on cells is somewhat like this. Until recently, scientists could take snapshots of cells in action, but they had trouble recording what cells were doing over time. They were getting an incomplete picture of the events occurring in cells. Researchers have started solving this problem by combining some old knowledge—that DNA is spectacularly good at storing i...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - June 20, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Kathryn Calkins Tags: Genetics Bacteria Cool Tools/Techniques CRISPR Gene Editing Source Type: blogs

Teens Explore Science and Health through Game Design
Educators often struggle to teach teens about sexual and reproductive health. Hexacago Health Academy (HHA) , an education program from the University of Chicago, leverages the fun activity of gameplay to impart these lessons to young people from Chicago’s South Side community. Funded by the Student Education Partnership Award (SEPA), part of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), in 2015, HHA assists teachers in their goal of helping teen students gain awareness and control over their health and also learn about careers in STEM and health fields. Melissa Gilliam, founder of Ci3. Credit: Anna Knott...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - June 13, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Juli Rose Tags: Computers in Biology Infectious Disease Training Source Type: blogs

Interview with a Scientist: Michael Summers, Using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance to Study HIV
For more than 30 years, NIGMS has supported the structural characterization of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) enzymes and viral proteins. This support has been instrumental in the development of crucial drugs for antiretroviral therapy such as protease inhibitors. NIGMS continues to support further characterization of viral proteins as well as cellular and viral complexes. These complexes represent the fundamental interactions between the virus and its host target cell and, as such, represent potential new targets for therapeutic development. In this third in a series of three video interviews with NIGMS-funded researc...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - June 6, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Steve Constantinides Tags: Being a Scientist Structural Biology HIV/AIDS Structural Biology Infection Viruses Source Type: blogs

Interview with a Scientist: Wes Sundquist, How the Host Immune System Fights HIV
 For more than 30 years, NIGMS has supported the structural characterization of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) enzymes and viral proteins. This support has been instrumental in the development of crucial drugs for antiretroviral therapy such as protease inhibitors. NIGMS continues to support further characterization of viral proteins as well as cellular and viral complexes. These complexes represent the fundamental interactions between the virus and its host target cell and, as such, represent potential new targets for therapeutic development. In this second in a series of three video interviews with NIGMS-funded re...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - May 30, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Steve Constantinides Tags: Being a Scientist Structural Biology HIV/AIDS Structural Biology Infection Viruses Source Type: blogs

Interview With a Scientist: Irwin Chaiken, Rendering HIV Inert
For more than 30 years, NIGMS has supported the structural characterization of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) enzymes and viral proteins. This support has been instrumental in the development of crucial drugs for antiretroviral therapy such as protease inhibitors. NIGMS continues to support further characterization of viral proteins as well as cellular and viral complexes. These complexes represent the fundamental interactions between the virus and its host target cell and, as such, represent potential new targets for therapeutic development. In this first in a series of three video interviews with NIGMS-funded resear...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - May 23, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Steve Constantinides Tags: Being a Scientist Structural Biology HIV Structural Biology Videos HIV/AIDS Structural Biology Infection Viruses Source Type: blogs

CLAMP Helps Lung Cells Pull Together
Cells covered with cilia (red strands) on the surface of frog embryos. Credit: The Mitchell Lab. The outermost cells that line blood vessels, lungs, and other organs also act like guards, alert and ready to thwart pathogens, toxins, and other invaders that can do us harm. Called epithelial cells, they don’t just lie passively in place. Instead, they communicate with each other and organize their internal structures in a single direction, like a precisely drilled platoon of soldiers lining up together and facing the same way. Lining up this way is crucial during early development, when tissues and organs are forming and s...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - May 16, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Kathryn Calkins Tags: Cell Biology Cells Cellular Processes Cool Images Source Type: blogs

Interview with a Scientist: Jeramiah Smith on the Genomic Antics of an Ancient Vertebrate
The first known descriptions of cancer come from ancient Egypt more than 3,500 years ago. Early physicians attributed the disease to several factors, including an imbalance in the body’s humoral fluids, trauma, and parasites. Only in the past 50 years or so have we figured out that mutations in critical genes are often the trigger. The sea lamprey, a slimy, snake-like blood sucker, is proving to be an ideal tool for understanding these mutations. The sea lamprey, often called the jawless fish, is an ancient vertebrate whose ancestor diverged from the other vertebrate lineages (fish, reptiles, birds and mammals) more than...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - May 9, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Chris Palmer Tags: Being a Scientist Genetics Chromosomes Cool Creatures Research Organisms Source Type: blogs

Pericytes: Capillary Guardians in the Brain
The long arms of pericytes cells (red) stretch along capillaries (blue) in a mouse brain. Credit: Andy Shih. Nerve cells, or neurons, in our brains do amazing work, from telling our hearts to beat to storing our memories. But neurons cannot operate alone. Many kinds of cells support and regulate neurons and—like neurons—they can come under attack due to injuries or disorders, such as stroke or Alzheimer’s disease. Learning what jobs these cells do and how they respond to disease may show researchers new ways to treat central nervous system disorders. One type of support cell, the pericyte, plays some key roles in br...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - May 2, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Kathryn Calkins Tags: Cell Biology Cells Cellular Processes Source Type: blogs

Optogenetics Sparks New Research Tools
Imagine if scientists could zap a single cell (or group of cells) with a pulse of light that makes the cell move, or even turns on or off the cell’s vital functions. Scientists are working toward this goal using a technology called optogenetics. This tool draws on the power of light-sensitive molecules, called opsins and cryptochromes, which are naturally occurring molecules found in the cell membranes of a wide variety of species, from microscopic bacteria and algae to plants and humans. These light-reacting molecules change their shape or activity when they sense light, so they can be used to trigger cellular activity,...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - April 24, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Barbara Vann Tags: Cell Biology Cells Cellular Processes Cool Tools/Techniques Proteins Source Type: blogs