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The protein gamma-secretase appeared to be a promising target for drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease. It “cuts” the amyloid precursor protein to release amyloid-beta — a protein fragment that clumps together and forms neuron-killing plaques. “Amyloid-beta is thought to ‘seed’ Alzheimer’s disease, so lowering its production has been a goal to… Read More

Cell survival is dependent upon regulation of numerous proteins, both cytosolic and membrane bound. Reporting in Nature Communications, Mukhtar Ahmed, Ph.D., and Ian Macara, Ph.D., identified an unexpected link between cell survival and the polarized delivery of proteins to the surface of mammary epithelial cells. Read More

The fungal pathogen Candida albicans causes diseases ranging from topical infections such as athlete’s foot and oral thrush to life-threatening systemic infections. Increasing incidence of infections and drug resistance support the need for new therapeutics. Now, Galina Lepesheva, Ph.D., and colleagues report the catalytic properties, ligand-binding profiles and inhibition of activity of C. albicans CYP51 by… Read More

Understanding the processes that regulate aging is crucial to potentially increasing longevity and enhancing quality of life. Using the budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S. cerevisiae), Christopher Lord, Ph.D., Ophir Ospovat and Susan Wente, Ph.D., demonstrated that accumulation of tRNA (transfer RNA) in the nucleus increased replicative life span. These results were published this month in… Read More

Jennifer Pietenpol, Ph.D., Executive Vice President for Research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) and director of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC), has been named a Chief Scientific Advisor (CSA) for the nonprofit breast cancer organization Susan G. Komen. She joins George Sledge Jr., M.D., professor of Medicine at Stanford University Medical… Read More

​Epithelial cells form the lining of cavities and the surfaces of organs and blood vessels in animals. A distinctive feature of epithelial cells is their polarization, as indicated by the segregation of cell cortex proteins into functionally distinct regions. In particular, epithelia have apical and basolateral domains separated by… Read More

A natural signaling molecule that activates cannabinoid receptors in the brain plays a critical role in stress-resilience — the ability to adapt to repeated and acute exposures to traumatic stress, according to researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The findings in a mouse model could have broad implications for the potential… Read More

Fresh insights into living cells, brighter video projectors and more accurate medical tests are just three of the innovations that could result from a new way of fabricating lasers.The new method, developed by an international research team from U of T Engineering, Vanderbilt University, the Los Alamos National Laboratory and… Read More

One way that many forms of cancer evade the toxic effects of chemotherapeutic drugs is through expression of the P-glycoprotein. This membrane protein uses energy from the hydrolysis of ATP to transport over 200 structurally distinct compounds, including many drugs, out of the cell. Because of its widespread expression in… Read More

Biologists who study the malaria mosquito’s “nose” have found that it contains a secondary set of odor sensors that seem to be specially tuned to detect humans. The discovery could aid efforts to figure out how the insects target humans and develop a preference for them. “This appears to be a… Read More