Microbiology

The cells which thicken the womb wall during a woman's menstrual cycle contain a newly discovered type of stem cell, and could be used in the treatment of damaged and/or old tissue, according to…

Cloning is not a human invention; nature has been creating clones for millions of years, among all organisms including humans. Nature’s clones, identical twins, are born in approximately 1 / 1000…

The enzyme TPPII may contribute to obesity by stimulating the formation of fat cells, suggests a study in EMBO reports this week. The enzyme, TPPII, has previously been linked to making people feel…

Using a molecular cellular compass, individual cells in complex organisms know which way is up or down, in epithelial cells known as apical-basal polarity. Determining the orientation is essential…

A human embryonic stem cell is reined in – prevented from giving up its unique characteristics of self-renewal and pluripotency – by the presence of a protein modification that stifles any genes that…

Urologists at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital are studying whether a neo-bladder construct grown from a patient’s own cells can improve bladder function for adult spinal cord injury patients.…

For more than a decade, University of Georgia researcher Steve Stice has focused on using embryonic stem cells to improve the lives of people with degenerative diseases and debilitating injuries. His…

For more than 100 years, scientists have tried to figure out the cell size problem: How does a cell know when it is big enough to divide? In research conducted in budding yeast (Saccharomyces…

The voltage sensor of voltage-gated ion channels is a conserved protein domain that senses millivolt changes in transmembrane potential, to regulate ion permeation through the channel. A recently…

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a disease that breaks down tissues in the nervous system. ALS is a disease of the motor neurons leading to a progressive loss of the ability to move virtually…