Hijacking: tumour cells reprogramme the immune system

New approaches to cancer therapy investigated

12-Mar-2024 - Despite modern immunotherapies and existing drugs, lung cancer patients often develop resistance to treatment. To close this gap, an international team including Thekla Cordes, professor for cell metabolism at Technische Universität Braunschweig at the Braunschweig Centre for Systems Biology ...

High-fat diets alter gut bacteria, boosting colorectal cancer risk in mice

Salk scientists pinpointed specific microbes and bile acids that become more prevalent in the guts of mice fed high-fat diets

30-Aug-2023 - The prevalence of colorectal cancer in people under the age of 50 has risen in recent decades. One suspected reason: the increasing rate of obesity and high-fat diets. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute and UC San Diego have discovered how high-fat diets can change gut bacteria and alter ...

Key enzyme found in plants could guide development of medicines and other products

10-Sep-2019 - Plants can do many amazing things. Among their talents, they can manufacture compounds that help them repel pests, attract pollinators, cure infections and protect themselves from excess temperatures, drought and other hazards in the environment. Researchers from the Salk Institute studying how ...

An ATM that dispenses antioxidants

Dual role of protein that watches for cellular threats and repairs damage

12-Jul-2018 - One reason we're supposed to eat a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables is because they contain nutritious compounds called antioxidants. These molecules counteract the damage to our bodies from harmful products of normal cells called reactive oxygen species (ROS). Now, research led by a ...

Understanding how DNA is selectively tagged with 'do not use' marks

09-May-2018 - Not all of your genome needs to be active at any given time. Some regions are prone to hopping around the genome in problematic ways if left unchecked; others code for genes that need to be turned off in certain cells or at certain times. One way that cells keep these genetic elements under ...

Organoids reveal how a deadly brain cancer grows

26-Apr-2018 - Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is an incredibly deadly brain cancer and presents a serious black box challenge. It's virtually impossible to observe how these tumors operate in their natural environment and animal models don't always provide good answers. But now, Salk Institute researchers have ...

Alzheimer's drug turns back clock in powerhouse of cell

11-Jan-2018 - The experimental drug J147 is something of a modern elixir of life; it's been shown to treat Alzheimer's disease and reverse aging in mice and is almost ready for clinical trials in humans. Now, Salk scientists have solved the puzzle of what, exactly, J147 does. They report that the drug binds to ...

Early gene-editing success holds promise for preventing inherited diseases

03-Aug-2017 - Scientists have, for the first time, corrected a disease-causing mutation in early stage human embryos with gene editing. The technique, which uses the CRISPR-Cas9 system, corrected the mutation for a heart condition at the earliest stage of embryonic development so that the defect would not be ...

Tilted microscopy technique better reveals protein structures

New cryo-EM method to facilitate a better understanding of proteins involved in disease

05-Jul-2017 - The conventional way of placing protein samples under an electron microscope during cryo-EM experiments may fall flat when it comes to getting the best picture of a protein's structure. In some cases, tilting a sheet of frozen proteins -- by anywhere from 10 to 50 degrees -- as it lies under the ...

Multi-institutional collaboration uncovers how molecular machines assemble

06-Dec-2016 - Ribosomes--macromolecular machines consisting of RNA and proteins that twist, fold and turn--are responsible for making all of the protein within a cell and could hold the key to deciphering a range of diseases. Despite the intricacies of ribosomes, cells are able to churn out 100,000 of them ...