Cell Membrane News and Research

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Novel Antibiotic Discovery: Harnessing Energy Compounds to Combat Bacterial Infections

About a decade ago, researchers in UC Santa Barbara chemistry professor Guillermo Bazan's lab began to observe a recurring challenge in their research: Some of the compounds they were developing to harness energy from bacteria were instead killing the microbes.

22 Feb 2024

CAR Peptide Accelerates Tissue Repair and Minimizes Scarring

Accelerating tissue injury repair while preventing the formation of less functioning scar tissue in the injured areas is one of the main objectives of medical science.

15 Feb 2024

Plant Study Reveals Novel Mechanism for Coordinating Cellular Responses to Stress

A team of researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently published a pioneering study that answers a central question in biology: how do organisms rally a wide range of cellular processes when they encounter a change-;either internally or in the external environment-;to thrive in good times or survive the bad times?

7 Feb 2024

Unveiling HIV's Hidden Entry Point for Targeted Antibodies

As the HIV virus approaches a human cell to dock and potentially deliver its lethal genetic code, there is a remarkably brief moment during which a tiny portion of its surface undergoes a rapid opening, initiating the infection process.

5 Feb 2024

Bacterial "Freight Elevator" Transports Camouflage Molecule for Immune Evasion

Some bacterial membrane transporters work almost like freight elevators to transport substances through the cell membrane into the interior of the cell. The transporter itself spans the bacterial membrane.

9 Jan 2024

Scientists Unravel the Mystery of Parkinson's Disease With 3D Protein Structures

Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital revealed the complex structure of two Parkinson's disease-related proteins, both of which are implicated in late-onset cases.

26 Dec 2023

Light-Activated "Good Vibrations" can Destroy Cancer Cells

The Beach Boys' iconic hit single "Good Vibrations" takes on a whole new layer of meaning thanks to a recent discovery by Rice University scientists and collaborators, who have uncovered a way to destroy cancer cells by using the ability of some molecules to vibrate strongly when stimulated by light.

20 Dec 2023

Novel Endogenous Acid Sensor and a Calcium Store Found in Plant Guard Cells

When plants are infected by pathogens, suffer from a lack of water or have to react to other external stimuli, the first thing they do is increase the proton and calcium concentration in the affected cells.

18 Dec 2023

Non-Invasive Technology for the High-Throughput Characterization of Cancer Cells

Monitoring cancer cells effectively can help physicians with treatment and management, thus reducing cancer-related mortality.

11 Dec 2023

Unraveling the Molecular Basis of SIDT1 and SIDT2 in C. elegans

New work thoroughly characterizes the structural features of human SIDT1 and SIDT2, revealing their existence as dimers in vitro and their tendency to form dimers or higher-order oligomers in their natural environment.

23 Nov 2023

New Modular Nanoparticle Technology Opens the Door to a Variety of Therapeutic Approaches

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed modular nanoparticles that can be easily customized to target different biological entities such as tumors, viruses or toxins.

31 Oct 2023

The Exclusome, A New Mammalian "Container"

We speak to Dr. Ruth Kroschewski about new research that details the existence of an 'exclusome', a cytoplasmic container that appears to explain where extra-chromosomal DNA goes once it is in a cell.

24 Oct 2023

Small Chemical Change to Boost Bioavailability of Drug Molecules

The effectiveness of any drug molecule depends on how well it interacts with the internal environment inside our body.

11 Oct 2023

New Device Mimics Biology to Detect Disease

In living organisms, cells have a very high capacity to process and communicate information by moving molecules or ions through tiny channels that span the cell membrane. UC Santa Cruz Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Marco Rolandi's lab and collaborators at MIT have created a device that mimics this biological concept in order to detect disease.

19 Sep 2023

Targeted MicroRNA-34a Therapy Shows Promise in Slowing Tumor Growth in Mice

A new cancer therapy developed by Purdue University researchers attacks tumors by tricking cancer cells into absorbing a snippet of RNA that naturally blocks cell division.

5 Sep 2023

Scientists Develop New Method to Control Insulin Release with Music

Diabetes is a condition in which the body produces too little or no insulin. Diabetics thus depend on an external supply of this hormone via injection or pump. Researchers led by Martin Fussenegger from the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH Zurich in Basel want to make the lives of these people easier and are looking for solutions to produce and administer insulin directly in the body.

23 Aug 2023

Viral Proteins Promote the Spread of Protein Aggregates in the Brain

Viral genetic remnants found naturally in the human genome may influence the development of neurodegenerative diseases.

22 Aug 2023

Noelin1-3 Proteins Have Major Influence on Learning and Memory Formation in the Mammalian Brain

A German-American research team headed by Prof. Dr. Bernd Fakler from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Freiburg demonstrated the major influence of Noelin1-3 proteins on learning and memory formation in the mammalian brain.

21 Aug 2023

New Insights Into Lactate Transporters and Their Therapeutic Potential

Researchers from the Giulio Superti-Furga Lab at CeMM, the Austrian Academy of Sciences’ Research Center for Molecular Medicine, have developed a new technique for identifying specific inhibitors of a lactate transporter linked to cancer and other diseases.

31 Jul 2023

Convolutional Neural Network for Quantitative Analysis of Cell Organelles

High-brilliance X-Rays from BESSY II can be utilized to create microscopic images with a spatial resolution of as little as a few tens of nanometers. Without the complicated sample preparation required for electron microscopy, whole cell volumes can be analyzed.

19 Jul 2023