Scientists at the Center for Translational Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia have found that a protein that appears to have protective and perhaps healing effects for failing hearts also plays a similar role in high blood pressure. They found lower-than-normal levels of the protein S100A1 in cells that line blood vessel walls in…
HPLC Scales New Peaks
Higher pressures and smaller particles combined with software and hardware improve protein purification. Advances in column and instrument technology give researchers more tools for sample analysis. In 1900, Russian botanist Mikhail Tsvet performed a clever experiment. After filling a glass column with calcium carbonate, the primary ingredient in limestone, he loaded an aliquot of…
Welcome to the Club
Researchers tip their caps to capillary electrophoresis—a pretty powerful method of separating analytes that has found its place in the hearts of old school chromatographiles. People are always trying to separate one thing from another. They separate whites from colors before washing clothes. They separate their socks from their shirts when putting away their laundry.…
Genetic Breakthrough Explains Dangerously High Blood Glucose Levels
Canadian, French, and British researchers have identified a DNA sequence that controls the variability of blood glucose levels in people. This is a potentially significant discovery because high blood glucose levels in otherwise healthy people often are indications of heart disease and higher mortality rates. The results will be in the online version of the…
Innovative Materials Allow Better Control, Delivery of Gene Therapy
Before gene therapy becomes practical for treating human diseases, researchers must master the details of safe and effective delivery. Cardiology researchers at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia have advanced delivery techniques by creating a versatile synthetic material that can bind to a variety of gene therapy vectors and can be custom-designed for controlled local release…
How Proteins Control the Process When Bacteria Multiply
Researchers have solved important puzzles concerning how certain proteins guide the reproduction of bacteria, discoveries that could lead to a new type of antibiotics. In a recent study published in the journal Current Biology, the scientists reported how a belt-like structure called a Z ring, which pinches a rod-shaped bacterium to produce two offspring, can…
Protein Biomarker Screening
SomaPlex slides from Protein BioTechnologies, for screening protein biomarkers in human tumors, are arrays prepared from a vast collection of total protein lysates derived from numerous human tissues representing a range of cancer subtypes. Detailed clinical and histopathology is available for each sample. Protein from patient-matched normal and tumor tissue is robotically-spotted on specially-treated glass…
Better Protection
Preventing RNA degradation is difficult, but newer systems for protecting this molecule may lead the way to better gene expression analysis. RNA integrity is crucial for obtaining reliable and meaningful gene expression data. Using highly-purified, intact RNA samples is a key component for the successful application of modern molecular biology and diagnostic techniques such as…
A Spectrum of Possibilities
Mass spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance go head-to-head in a battle for dominance in the world of proteomics. Different sects of proteomics researchers have long identified themselves by their favored techniques: mass spectroscopists preach the scripture of sensitivity and speed, while NMR spectroscopists seek the revelations of reproducibility and resolution. Being scientists, though, the closest…
CHO-based Cell Culture
Invitrogen’s CHO CD EfficientFeed Kit rapidly identifies the optimum feed regimen for any fed-batch CHO-based cell culture. The kit improves CHO fed-batch productivity and with developing bioreactor seed stocks. The new CHO CD EfficientFeed Kit comes with two feed supplements (1 liter each of CHO CD EfficientFeed A and CHO CD EfficientFeed B) and a…
Determining Function
Functional proteomics, powered by mass spectrometry, leads the way to the identification of better biomarkers. click to enlarge MALDI-TOF quantification of peptides in serum of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and controls matchedon age and gender: A. Cases (n=78); B. Controls (n=72), mass range 0.9-1.9 kDa. Peptides were extracted from serum by ultra-filtration and desalting…
Rolling the Dice on Crohn’s Disease
Researchers worldwide use genomic tools to gain ground in the fight against Crohn’s Disease and other common human diseases. click to enlarge Shown here is a typical readout from the Illumina genotyping array used in some of the Crohn’s Disease genome association studies. (Source: Struan Grant, PhD) Crohn’s Disease is one of many inflammatory…
Electrophoresis System
Shimadzu’s MCE-202 MultiNA with reusable microchips automates sample processing for DNA and RNA nucleic acid, including pre-treatment, separation, detection, and data preparation, in a single device. An LED-excited fluorescence detector increases sensitivity to more than 10 times that of ethidium bromide staining, yet operating costs for this unit are comparable to or less than agarose…
In the Game
Systems biology is becoming increasingly more integrated into drug discovery and development processes, but is it ready to make a game-winning play? Systems biology is the integration of high-content and high-throughput bioassay (‘omics’) data to generate predictive models of biological functions and processes. Models of human disease biology and pharmacology that are more predictive of…
Technology in Action: Massive Improvement
Advancements in mass spectrometry promise to make biomarker discovery a lot easier in the future. Interest in the field of biomarker discovery—biological compounds that when detected in tissues or body fluids can be used to indicate a specific disease state—is growing at a rapid pace. Once known, a biomarker can be used to diagnose the…
Electroporation System
Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. introduces of the Gene Pulser MXcell electroporation system, designed for researchers working with mammalian cells—in particular, primary cells and stem cells or other difficult to transfect cells. The MXcell system is fully programmable and can deliver up to 24 different electroporation protocols in a single 96-well plate in two minutes or less.…
Scientists Explore Factors Contributing to DNA Mutations
A team of Penn State researchers conducted a genome-wide study to compare the relative importance of factors that contribute to DNA mutations, which are implicated in cancer and more than 40 neurological disorders. Led by assistant professor of biology Kateryna Makova, the group investigated the simultaneous effects of numerous factors that are thought to increase…
Possible Targeted Treatment for Auto-immune Diseases Examined
VIB researchers connected to Ghent University and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven joined forces and have elucidated the function of MALT1, a key player in controlling inflammatory reactions. They are the first to show that MALT1 is able to cleave the A20 protein, which inhibits inflammation. Scientists hope that by counteracting MALT1 they will be able…
Novel Genes ‘Notch’ Glucose into Place
A novel gene called rumi regulates Notch signaling by adding a glucose molecule to the part of the Notch protein that extends outside a cell, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and Stony Brook University in New York in a report that appears in the journal Cell. Cellular signaling governed by the…
Evolutionary Phenonmenon in Mice May Explain Human Infertility
Scientists at the University of Liverpool have found that field mice have evolved a unique way of ensuring faster fertilization, a phenomenon which could explain some cases of infertility in humans. The team, in collaboration with Charles University, Prague, found that field mice sacrifice some of their immunity protection in favour of a more rapid…
NIH Announces New Initiative in Epigenomics
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will invest more than $190 million over the next five years to accelerate an emerging field of biomedical research known as epigenomics. “Disease is about more than genetics. It’s about how genes are regulated — how and when they work in both health and disease,” said NIH Director Elias…
New Genetic Risk Factors Identified for Lupus in Women
An international consortium of clinical scientists and genomics experts, including researchers from the Montreal Heart Institute (MHI) and Université de Montréal (UdeM), have uncovered multiple new genetic risk factors for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), commonly known as lupus. The large-scale genomic study is the first of its kind to investigate the genetic basis of lupus.…
Stem-cell Transplantation Improves Muscles in Animal Model
Using embryonic stem cells from mice, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have prompted the growth of healthy—and more importantly, functioning—muscle cells in mice afflicted with a human model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Thre study represents the first time transplanted embryonic stem cells have been shown to restore function to defective muscles in a model of…
Other Genes May Influence Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease
Through one of the largest studies yet of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients and their brothers, sisters, and children, researchers at Mayo Clinic Jacksonville have found strong evidence that genes other than the well-known susceptibility risk factor APOE4 influence who is at risk for developing the neurodegenerative disease later in life. Studying 25 multigenerational families of…
Sample Prep
An automated solution for molecular biology laboratories faced with preparing media for DNA cloning has been announced by Integra Biosciences. Using the combination of the Mediajet Automated Petri dish pourer together with the Tubefiller accessory, Integra Biosciences is able to offer an integrated automated solution that satisfies all the media preparation needs of molecular biology…