Science and Health News

Researchers at the University of California San Diego have discovered an easy and efficient way to coax human pluripotent stem cells to regenerate bone tissue-by feeding them adenosine, a naturally occurring molecule in the body. The stem-cell-derived bone tissue helped repair cranial bone defects in mice without developing tumors or causing infection.

For the first time ever, DNA was successfully sequenced in microgravity as part of the Biomolecule Sequencer experiment performed by NASA astronaut Kate Rubins this weekend aboard the International Space Station. The ability to sequence the DNA of living organisms in space opens a whole new world of scientific and medical possibilities. Scientists consider it a game changer.

Researchers from MIPT, the Institute of Biomedical Chemistry, the Institute for Energy Problems of Chemical Physics, and the Research Institute of Physico-Chemical Medicine have presented an algorithm to detect mutant proteins based on mass spectrometry data and the results of exome sequencing. Using this new approach, the scientists have discovered unique genome variants, some of which are linked to cancer development. Studying mutant peptides will help to detect weaknesses in tumor cells in search for more effective drug treatments. The results have been published in the journal Proteomics.

New Jersey researchers have identified what is believed to be the first strain of Escherichia coli bacteria from a patient in the United States that harbored two mobile genes making it resistant to both broad spectrum carbapenem antibiotics as well as colistin, an older antibiotic increasingly used as a last resort for multidrug-resistant infections. Their report is published this week in mBio®, an online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

A research group under the leadership of Linköping University Professor Markus Heilig has identified an enzyme whose production is turned off in nerve cells of the frontal lobe when alcohol dependence develops. The deficiency in this enzyme leads to continued use of alcohol despite adverse consequences.

A research team led by investigators at The Saban Research Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles has generated functional human and mouse tissue-engineered liver from adult stem and progenitor cells.

A team behind regenerative dental fillings that could help heal teeth have been awarded a Royal Society of Chemistry prize.

A team involving Kobe University researchers has succeeded in developing ‘Target-AID’, a genome editing technique that does not cleave the DNA. The technique offers, through high-level editing operation, a method to address the existing issues of genome editing. It is expected that the technique will be applied to gene therapy in the future in addition to providing a powerful tool for breeding useful organisms and conducting disease and drug-discovery research. The findings were published online in Science on August 5 (Japan Standard Time).