Recent advances in localization-based super-resolution microscopy have enabled researchers to visualize single molecular features down to individual molecular components (~5 nm), but do not yet allow manipulation of single-molecule targets in a user-prescribed, context-dependent manner. Here we report an ‘Action-PAINT’ (PAINT, point accumulation for imaging in nanoscale topography) strategy for super-resolution labelling on visualization on single molecules. This approach monitors and…
A new study led by Harvard Medical School researchers at the MassGeneral Hospital for Children has found that adolescent sleep timing preferences and patterns should be considered risk factors for obesity and cardiometabolic health, and that the effects are greater in girls than in boys. Poor quality and short duration of sleep are known to increase obesity and cardiometabolic risk…
Sepsis, an extreme immune response to infection, has no specific treatment and is a leading cause of hospital deaths. As part of their care, patients often undergo imaging procedures and surgery to pinpoint and help eliminate the infection. New preclinical findings in mice suggest that the choice of general anesthetic used for these procedures can influence sepsis outcomes. Quite separate…
Studying refugees in the Trump era’s political climate is, as Heba Gowayed diplomatically puts it, “suboptimal.” So the first-ever longitudinal survey she plans to do, which would take years in the best of times—measuring how easily refugees master English, find a decent job, and gain a fundamental sense of security and belonging—remains an aspiration for now. Meanwhile, the College of Arts &…
Major physical changes occurred in the human heart as people shifted from hunting and foraging to farming and modern life. As a result, human hearts are now less “ape-like” and better suited to endurance types of activity. But that also means those who lead sedentary lives are at greater risk for heart disease. Those are the main conclusions from a…
For patients with recurrent ovarian cancer that has been brought into remission with platinum-based chemotherapy, treatment with the drug niraparib can significantly prolong the time without symptoms or toxicity (TWiST), according to a new study led by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The study, published online today by the Journal of Clinical Oncology, analyzed data from 553 participants in the phase…
The new tool more accurately distinguishes mutations that drive cancer from ones that don’t, and could help focus future research and drug development. Researchers have generated a long list of genetic mutations linked to cancer, but sorting out which ones really drive tumors to grow uncontrollably and which ones don’t has been a challenge. A new mathematical model developed by…
Signs of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) typically start to become apparent only in a child’s second year of life or later, but earlier identification could allow children to receive interventions as babies, when they have greater brain plasticity and thus may receive more benefit. A new study in Nature Communications finds that periodic EEGs in babies, starting as young as 3 months of…
The RAG endonuclease initiates Igh V(D)J assembly in B cell progenitors by joining D segments to JH segments, before joining upstream VH segments to DJH intermediates. In mouse progenitor B cells, the CTCF-binding element (CBE)-anchored chromatin loop domain at the 3′ end of Igh contains an internal subdomain that spans the 5′ CBE anchor (IGCR1), the DH segments, and a RAG-bound recombination centre (RC). The RC comprises the JH-proximal…
There’s a community of microscopic organisms, called a microbiome, that live on each northern leopard frog in Douglas Woodhams’s lab. The assistant professor of biology has earned a five-year $979,046 CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation to study how peptides—very small proteins in the mucus that are secreted from the glands in the skin—regulate those microbiomes. “Amphibians have these antimicrobial…
