New research opens door to expanding stem cells available for transplants

07-Aug-2018 - Researchers from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research and collaborators have identified a way to expand blood-forming, adult stem cells from human umbilical cord blood (hUCB). This development could make these cells available to more people, and be more readily accepted in those who undergo ...

Genetic cross-talk key to cell balance

07-Jun-2017 - Competing regulatory genes "talk" to each other to maintain balance of cell state, according to new research from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research. In a study Stowers scientists Bony De Kumar, Ph.D., and Robb Krumlauf, Ph.D., provide evidence of direct cross-regulatory feedback, or ...

Planaria deploy an ancient gene expression program

14-Apr-2014 - As multicellular creatures go, planaria worms are hardly glamorous. To say they appear rudimentary is more like it. These tiny aquatic flatworms that troll ponds and standing water resemble brown tubes equipped with just the basics: a pair of beady light-sensing "eyespots" on their head and a ...

Going global

Stowers team reports genome-wide analysis of genes that drive cell division in a multicellular organism

04-Apr-2014 - In textbooks, the grand-finale of cell division is the tug-of-war fought inside dividing cells as duplicated pairs of chromosomes get dragged in opposite directions into daughter cells. This process, called mitosis, is visually stunning to observe under a microscope. Equally stunning to cell ...

Conserved nuclear envelope protein uses a shuttle service

12-Feb-2014 - Researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have glimpsed two proteins working together inside living cells to facilitate communication between the cell's nucleus and its exterior compartment, the cytoplasm. The research provides new clues into how a crucial protein that is found in ...

Dampened mTOR signaling with the developmental disorder Roberts syndrome

08-Oct-2013 - Children born with developmental disorders called cohesinopathies can suffer severe consequences, including intellectual disabilities, limb shortening, craniofacial anomalies, and slowed growth. Researchers know which mutations underlie some cohesinopathies, but have developed little ...

Urgent! How genes tell cellular construction crews, 'Read me now!'

16-Aug-2013 - When egg and sperm combine, the new embryo bustles with activity. Its cells multiply so rapidly they largely ignore their DNA, other than to copy it and to read just a few essential genes. The embryonic cells mainly rely on molecular instructions placed in the egg by its mother in the form of ...

LEC: A multi-purpose tool

Stowers investigators' study reveals key piece of RNA-splicing machinery

13-Aug-2013 - A little-studied factor known as the Little Elongation Complex (LEC) plays a critical and previously unknown role in the transcription of small nuclear RNAs (snRNA), according to a new study led by scientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research and published in the journal Molecular ...

Ready. Get set. Repress!

Stowers scientists manipulate the Set2 pathway to show how genes are faithfully copied

24-Aug-2012 - The first step in gene expression is the exact copying of a segment of DNA by the enzyme known as RNA polymerase II, or pol II, into a mirror image RNA. Scientists recognize that pol II does not transcribe RNA via a smooth glide down the DNA highway but instead encounters an obstacle course of ...

A double ring ceremony prepares telomerase RNA to wed its protein partner

27-Mar-2012 - Few molecules are more interesting than DNA — except of course RNA. After two decades of research, that "other macromolecule" is no longer considered a mere messenger between glamorous DNA and protein-synthesizing machines. We now know that RNA has been leading a secret life, regulating gene ...