University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine researchers have identified the important role a protein plays in the body`s first line of defense in directing immune cells called neutrophils toward the site of infection or injury. Their results are described online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Neutrophils are white blood cells that are activated by chemical cues t...

Laser eye surgery to correct vision problems does not appear to be associated with lasting changes to cells lining the inside of the cornea at nine years after the procedure, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Two types of laser surgery — photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) and laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) —...

Scientists in Washington, DC, are reporting development and successful tests of a new way for exploring the insides of living cells, the microscopic building blocks of all known plants and animals. They explode the cell while it is still living inside a plant or animal, vaporize its contents, and sniff. The study appears in online in ACS` journal Analytical Chemistry. Akos Vertes and Bindesh Shres...

Danish nanophysicists have developed a new method for manufacturing the cornerstone of nanotechnology research — nanowires. The discovery has great potential for the development of nanoelectronics and highly efficient solar cells. It is PhD student Peter Krogstrup, Nano-Science Center, the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, who developed the method during his dissertation....

A novel method of detection of cervical cancer cells has been developed by Clarkson University Professor Igor Sokolov`s group, an affiliate of the University`s Nanoengineering and Biotechnology Laboratories Center (NABLAB). The group`s paper is published in Small. Methods for detection of cancer cells are mostly based on traditional techniques used in biology, such as visual identification of mali...

The same genes that are chemically altered during normal cell differentiation, as well as when normal cells become cancer cells, are also changed in stem cells that scientists derive from adult cells, according to new research from Johns Hopkins and Harvard. Although genetically identical to the mature body cells from which they are derived, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are notably speci...

Human embryonic stem cells derived from excess IVF embryos may help scientists unlock the mysteries of infertility for other couples struggling to conceive, according to new research from the Stanford University School of Medicine. Researchers at the school have devised a way to efficiently coax the cells to become human germ cells — the precursors of egg and sperm cells — in the labor...

Inflammation still ravages the lungs of some smokers years after they quit the habit. What sparks that smoldering destruction remained a mystery until a consortium of researchers led by Baylor College of Medicine found that certain dendritic cells in the lung — the cells that "present" a foreign antigen or protein to the immune system — provoke production of destructive T-cel...

Several cell-based therapy approaches could provide new treatments for patients with Alport syndrome, reports an upcoming paper in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). "Our study opens up many considerations of how new therapies related to the use of stem cells can be devised for our kidney patients with chronic disease," comments Raghu Kalluri, MD, PhD (Harvard Medi...

Damaged knee joints might one day be repaired with cartilage grown from stem cells in a laboratory, based on research by Professor Kyriacos Athanasiou, chair of the UC Davis Department of Biomedical Engineering and his colleagues. Using adult stem cells from bone marrow and skin as well as human embryonic stem cells, Athanasiou and his group have already grown cartilage tissue in the lab. Now they...