Discoveries

By Alexandra Fuller Model of vertebrate replication termination. Adapted with permission from Dewar et al. Nature 2018; 525:345–350. DOI: 10.1038/nature14887. You might break chicken eggs for your breakfast, but the lab of James Dewar (Biochemistry) breaks frog eggs to better understand the mechanisms cells use to terminate DNA replication. Published… Read More

By Cayetana Arnaiz Yépez Super-resolution images of two human epithelial cells. Fluorescence intensities are heatmapped to facilitate visualization; warmer colors correspond to higher levels of the cytoskeletal protein, actin. Image courtesy of Matt Tyska. Cells along our intestinal tract are responsible for absorbing nutrients and acting as a barrier to… Read More

By Natalya Ortolano Confocal laser scanning microscopy image of the dorsal cord of a young adult showing a VD motor neuron with spine-like protrusions, and a close-up of the spines. Figure reproduced and modified under a CC BY 4.0 license from eLife 2019;8:e47918. When Nobel laureate Santiago… Read More

By Colbie Chinowsky Drawing of two enterocytes representing Microvillus Inclusion Disease (left and center) and a healthy enterocyte with its microvilli on its apical side. Adapted with permission from Vogel, GF, Janecke, AR, Krainer, IM, Gutleben, K, Witting, B, Mitton, SG, Mansour, S, Ballauff, A, Roland, JT, Engevik, AC, Cutz,… Read More

By Coleman Harris Caption: “Scanning electron micrograph of S. aureus bacteria escaping destruction by human white blood cells” by NIAID licensed under CC BY 2.0. Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is a pathogen that often causes the typical “staph infections” that form abscesses or boils.  The pathogen maximizes its ability to… Read More

By Amanda N. John­­­son Reprinted with permission from ACS Nano2019, 13, 10, 10939-10960. Copyright 2019 American Chemical Society. A recent study reported in ACS Nano adds vaccination to the list of human activities where the means to an end are just as important as the end itself. Read More

By Lorena Infante Lara DNA replication is an intensely complicated process that relies on the actions and interactions of many, many proteins. At least 593, to be precise. Using iPOND (isolation of proteins on nascent DNA), a tool that was first developed in his lab, David… Read More

Figure reproduced under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike-No Mirror Sites License from C. Strothman, et al., (2019) J. Cell Biol., Published online August 16, DOI: 10.1083/jcb.201905019. Copyright 2019, C. Strothman, et al. Microtubules – protein polymers consisting of heterodimers of α- and β-tubulin – play a critical role in cell division, morphology,… Read More

By Lorena Infante Lara Densely packed microvilli (dark circles) naturally arrange into overlapping hexagons (red). Image of microvilli cross-sections courtesy of Matt Tyska. Modified with permission. New technologies allow us to look at old knowledge with fresh eyes. Scientists have known about microvilli for a long time. Electron microscopy showed… Read More

Figure reproduced under the CC BY-NC-ND license from C. P. Nielsen, et al., Cell Rep., 28, 1074. The WNT family of signaling proteins plays an important role in the regulation of cell proliferation, differentiation, motility, and migration via multiple pathways that are frequently dysregulated in cancer. The well-known canonical WNT… Read More