News by Subject Biology

New findings provide insights about how the intestine maximizes nutrient uptake, while at the same time protecting the body from potentially dangerous microbes.

Researchers from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have discovered a new function of ribosomes in human cells that may show the protein-making particle's role in destroying healthy mRNAs, the messages that decode DNA into protein.

Until now, researchers have assumed that the growth of solid tumors originates from cancer stem cells characterized by specific surface markers, which develop in a fixed, hierarchical order. In a joint interdisciplinary project led by the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH), researchers now show that cancer cells of glioblastomas -- conspicuously aggressive solid brain tumors -- manifest developmental plasticity and their phenotypic characteristics are less constrained than believed.

Cells in the body are wired like computer chips to direct signals that instruct how they function, research from the University of Edinburgh suggests. Unlike a fixed circuit board, however, cells can rapidly rewire their communication networks to change their behavior. The discovery of this cell-wide web turns our understanding of how instructions spread around a cell on its head.

A new Cornell University-led study finds that the genome for a widely researched worm, on which countless studies are based, was flawed. Now, a fresh genome sequence will set the record straight and improve the accuracy of future research.

Model organisms have advanced the study of genomics, eukaryotic biology, and evolution. An important resource for any model organism is a near-complete reference genome. Caenorhabditis elegans have been widely studied due to their short generation time and transparent anatomy and were one of the first multicellular organisms sequenced, yet gaps in their reference genome remain. Three studies, published today in Genome Research, provide novel insights into C. elegans genomics and gene expression.