LA JOLLA–When you’re taking a walk around the block, your body is mostly on autopilot–you don’t have to consciously think about alternating which leg you step with or which muscles it takes to lift a foot and put it back down. That’s thanks to a set of cells in your spinal cord that help translate messages between your brain and your motor neurons, which control muscles.
LA JOLLA–Salk neuroscientist Thomas Albright has been appointed to the National Commission on Forensic Science by the Department of Justice and the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology.
LA JOLLA–Every organism–from a seedling to a president–must protect its DNA at all costs, but precisely how a cell distinguishes between damage to its own DNA and the foreign DNA of an invading virus has remained a mystery.
LA JOLLA–The loss of a critical receptor in a special class of inhibitory neurons in the
brain may be responsible for neurodevelopmental disorders including autism and schizophrenia, according to new research by Salk scientists.
LA JOLLA—Salk Professor Geoffrey Wahl will receive the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Outstanding Investigator Award (OIA), which encourages cancer research with breakthrough potential. Wahl, a professor in Salk’s Gene Expression Laboratory, will receive $7.9 million over a seven-year period to further his cancer research.
LA JOLLA–T cells are the guardians of our bodies: they constantly search for harmful invaders and diseased cells, ready to swarm and kill off any threats. A better understanding of these watchful sentries could allow scientists to boost the immune response against evasive dangers (e.g., cancer or infections), or to silence it when it mistakenly attacks the body itself (e.g., autoimmune disorders or allergies).
LA JOLLA–The Salk Institute will celebrate 20 years of Symphony at Salk on Saturday, August 29 with a magical evening of jazz. Trumpeter Chris Botti and jazz guitarist John Pizzarelli will join the acclaimed San Diego Symphony, led by distinguished conductor Maestro Thomas Wilkins.
LA JOLLA–William R. Brody will retire from the Salk Institute on December 31, 2015, having led the Institute through a successful fundraising campaign and launching a number of initiatives to ensure that Salk researchers continue to push the boundaries of science and medicine.
LA JOLLA–When it comes to developing efficient, robust networks, the brain may often know best.
Researchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and Carnegie Mellon University have, for the first time, determined the rate at which the developing brain eliminates unneeded connections between neurons during early childhood.
LA JOLLA–Healthy brain, muscle, eye and heart cells would improve the lives of tens of thousands of people around the world with debilitating mitochondrial diseases. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute have gotten one step closer to making such cures a reality: they’ve turned cells from patients into healthy, mutation-free stem cells that can then become any cell type. The new approach is described July 15, 2015 in Nature.
LA JOLLA–The Salk Institute today announced that Rusty Gage, Salk professor in the Laboratory of Genetics, has been selected as one of five recipients of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation’s Allen Distinguished Investigator (ADI) program and will be awarded $1.5 million to conduct his research. These researchers have projects aimed at uncovering the elusive biological foundations of Alzheimer’s disease. The projects are funded at a total of $7 million over three years.
LA JOLLA—Salk Institute plant biologist Julie Law has been named a Rita Allen Foundation Scholar, a distinction given to biomedical scientists whose research holds exceptional promise for advancing the frontiers of knowledge about how biological systems function in health and disease.
LA JOLLA–Unveiling how the 20,000 or so proteins in the human body work–and malfunction–is the key to understanding much of health and disease. Now, Salk researchers developed a new technique that allows scientists to better understand an elusive step critical in protein formation.
LA JOLLA–Mice that have a genetic version of mitochondrial disease can easily be mistaken for much older animals by the time they are nine months old: they have thinning grey hair, osteoporosis, poor hearing, infertility, heart problems and have lost weight. Despite having this disease at birth, these mice have a “secret weapon” in their youth that staves off signs of aging for a time.
LA JOLLA–As a tumor grows, its cancerous cells ramp up an energy-harvesting process to support its hasty development. This process, called autophagy, is normally used by a cell to recycle damaged organelles and proteins, but is also co-opted by cancer cells to meet their increased energy and metabolic demands.
LA JOLLA–Telomeres, specialized ends of our chromosomes that dictate how long cells can continue to duplicate themselves, have long been studied for their links to the aging process and cancer. Now, a discovery at the Salk Institute shows that telomeres may be more central than previously thought to a self-destruct program in cells that prevents tumors, a function that could potentially be exploited to improve cancer therapies.
LA JOLLA–What if you found out that pieces of your front door were occasionally flying off the door frame to carry out chores around the house? That’s the kind of surprise scientists at the Salk Institute experienced with their recent discovery that nucleoporins–proteins that act as cellular “doorways” to help manage what goes in and out of a cell’s nucleus–are actually much bigger players in expressing genes than previously thought.
LA JOLLA–The Pew Charitable Trusts announced today that Salk Institute scientist Nicola Allen, an assistant professor in the Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory, is one of 22 researchers to be named a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences. Allen joins the ranks of more than 600 outstanding scientists who have been selected as Pew scholars in the 30 years since the program’s inception.
LA JOLLA, CA–The Salk Institute is pleased to announce the election of neuroscientist Thomas M. Jessell and business leader Daniel Tierney to its Board of Trustees. The Board voted on the appointments in April.
LA JOLLA–Bread, cereal and other sugary processed foods cause rapid spikes and subsequent crashes in blood sugar. In contrast, diets made up of vegetables, fruits and whole grains are healthier, in part because they take longer to digest and keep us more even-keeled.
