Living cells say: Can you hear me now?

David L. Chandler, MIT News Office

Cells receive external signals (depicted in yellow) through sensing molecules — or receptors — (depicted in aqua) embedded in the cell membrane. These, in turn, start a cascade of signaling molecules that carry the signals to the nucleus or other internal structures in the cell. The new research shows the speed or other characteristics of this signaling process can change when the signals are being received. Image: NSF

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Correcting Sickle Cell Disease with Stem Cells

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Are cancers newly evolved species?

Cancer patients may view their tumors as parasites taking over their bodies, but this is more than a metaphor for Peter Duesberg, a molecular and cell biology professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

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Scripps Research Scientists Convert Skin Cells to Beating Heart Cells

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Analysis knocks down theory on origin of cell structure
Genomic tools show cilia probably did not originate as separate organism

David Chandler, MIT News Office

Understanding how living cells originated and evolved into their present forms remains a fundamental research area in biology, one boosted in recent years by the introduction of new tools for genomic analysis. Now, researchers at MIT and Boston University have used such tools to put what they say is "the last nail in the coffin" for one theory about the origin of a basic structure in the cell.
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The games microbes play
Game theory study in yeast shows how cooperative behavior meshes with evolutionary theory

Anne Trafton, News Office

One of the perplexing questions raised by evolutionary theory is how cooperative behavior, which benefits other members of a species at a cost to the individual, came to exist.
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Tiny backpacks for cells Polymer patches could ferry drugs, assist in cancer diagnosis

Anne Trafton, News Office

MIT engineers have outfitted cells with tiny "backpacks" that could allow them to deliver chemotherapy agents, diagnose tumors or become building blocks for tissue engineering.

Image courtesy / American Chemical Society
This T cell also has a polymer backpack.
The scale bar is 10 micrometers.

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Immunity, from the cell's point of view
Chemical engineers study immune cells in unprecedented detail

Anne Trafton, News Office

MIT engineers have painted the most detailed portrait yet of how single cells from the immune system respond to vaccination.

Photo / Justin Knight/Whitehead Institute

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Too much of a good thing: Cells with extra chromosomes share detrimental traits
New findings could help fight cancer

Anne Trafton, News Office

Mammalian cells with extra chromosomes share some common traits that could be exploited to develop cancer treatments, according to MIT biologists.
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JOHNS HOPKINS RESEARCHERS DETECT SWEET CACOPHANY WHILE LISTENING TO CELLULAR CROSS-TALK
 --Sugar Plays Key Role In How Cells Work

Johns Hopkins scientists were dubious in the early 1980s when they stumbled on small sugar molecules lurking in the centers of cells; not only were they not supposed to be there, but they certainly weren't supposed to be repeatedly attaching to and detaching from proteins, effectively switching them on and off. The conventional wisdom was that the job of turning proteins on and off -- and thus determining their actions -- fell to phosphates, in a common and easy-to-detect chemical step in which phosphates fasten to and unfasten from proteins; a process called phosphorylation.
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Digital zebrafish embryo provides the first complete developmental blueprint of a vertebrate
New Google Earth™-like model allows zooming in on the development of zebrafish

The montage shows the zebrafish digital embryo [left halves,
colors encode movement directions of cells] and the microscopy
data [right halves] at different time points in zebrafish development.

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UC San Diego Bioengineers Fill Holes in Science of Cellular Self-Organization

By Paul K. Mueller

Results of MD simulations for the colony growth in a closed container. The growth is limited by
four rigid walls. The size of the square domain is Lx=Lz=136.6d where d is the cell diameter. a-
c: Initially the colony is prepared by placing randomly oriented cells of different length in the
middle section. The panels show snapshots of the population taken at t=5.0, 15.0, 30.0. The cells
are colorized according to the value of the contact stress.

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Cutting calories could limit muscle wasting in later years

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Chemical concoctions can smooth over wrinkles and hide those pesky grays, but what about the signs of aging that aren’t so easy to fix, such as losing muscle mass? Cutting calories early could help, say University of Florida researchers who studied the phenomenon in rats.
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MIT zooms in on malaria-infected cells
Work could aid in diagnostics, drug testing

Anne Trafton, News Office

In work that could lead to new ways of detecting and treating malaria, MIT researchers have used two advanced microscopy techniques to show in unprecedented detail how the malaria parasite attacks red blood cells.

Photo / Patrick Gillooly
From left, graduate student YongKeun Park, School of Engineering
Dean Subra Suresh, Professor Michael Feld, and postdocs Monica Diez-Silva,
George Lykotrafitis and Wonshik Choi stand in the MIT Spectroscopy Laboratory.
The group has used microscopy techniques to show in unprecedented detail how
the malaria parasite attacks red blood cells.

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Scripps Research Team Unravels New Cellular Repair Mechanism
Work in Yeast Cells Could Lead to Similar Discovery in Humans and New Cancer Treatments

LA JOLLA, CA, August 6, 2008—A Scripps Research team has unraveled a new biochemical pathway that triggers a critical repair response to correct errors in the DNA replication process that could otherwise lead to harmful or fatal mutations in cells. Though the work focused on yeast cells, the team expects to find an analogous system in human cells that could be exploited as a target for potential therapies for cancers, which are often caused by such repair mechanisms going off course.
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Researchers Unravel Key Mechanism of Cellular Damage in Aging and Disease

Researchers have taken a first snapshot of how a class of highly reactive molecules inflicts cellular damage as part of aging, heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, kidney disease and Alzheimer’s disease to name a few. According to a study published today in the journal Cell, researchers have discovered a tool that can monitor related damage and determine the degree to which antioxidant drugs effectively combat disease.
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Team unveils 'parts list' of cell powerhouse

Nicole Davis, The Broad Institute

Imagine trying to figure out how your car's power train works from just a few of its myriad components: It would be nearly impossible. Scientists have long faced a similar challenge in understanding cells' tiny powerhouses -- called mitochondria -- from scant knowledge of their molecular parts.

Image / Bang Wong, Broad Institute, from
a Joint Center for Structural Genomics image
Individual proteins converge to form the distinctive
shape of mitochondria.

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How an injured embryo can regenerate

Weizmann Institute Scientists discover: How an Injured Embryo Can Regenerate Itself and Keep its Organs in Relative Proportion
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Proliferating cells foil microRNA control

Anne Trafton, News Office

MIT biologists have discovered that proliferating cells shift the output of their genes to evade regulation by microRNAs, tiny molecules that normally suppress tumor growth.
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