La Jolla, CA – Even closely related plants produce their own natural chemical cocktails, each set uniquely adapted to the individual plant’s specific habitat. Comparing anti-fungals produced by tobacco and henbane, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies discovered that only a few mutations in a key enzyme are enough to shift the whole output to an entirely new product mixture. Making fewer changes led to a mixture of henbane and tobacco-specific molecules and even so-called “chemical hybrids,” explaining how plants can tinker with their natural chemical factories and adjust their product line to a changing environment without shutting down intracellular chemical factories completely.
La Jolla, CA – Body weight and fertility have long known to be related to each other – women who are too thin, for example, can have trouble becoming pregnant. Now, a master switch has been found in the brain of mice that controls both, and researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies say it may work the same way in humans.
La Jolla, CA – It may take just one or two proteins to polish off a simple cellular task, but life-or-death matters, such as caring for the ends of chromosomes known as telomeres, require interacting crews of proteins, all with a common goal but each with a specialized task.
La Jolla, CA – As the summer approaches most of us rejoice, reach for the sunscreen and head outdoors. But an ever-growing number of people reach for tissue instead as pollen leaves eyes watering, noses running and spirits dwindling. Hay fever is just one of a host of hypersensitivity allergic diseases that cause suffering worldwide and others, such as severe reactions to bee stings or eating peanuts, can be more serious and even fatal.
La Jolla, CA – The bird enthusiast who chronicled the adventures of a flock of red-headed conures in his book "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill" knows most of the parrots by name, yet most of us would be hard pressed to tell one bird from another. While it has been known for a long time that we can become acutely attuned to our day-to-day environment, the underlying neural mechanism has been less clear.
LA JOLLA, CA—Trying to reap the health benefits of exercise? Forget treadmills and spin classes, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies may have found a way around the sweat and pain. They identified two signaling pathways that are activated in response to exercise and converge to dramatically increase endurance.
La Jolla, CA – Logic says it has to be the niche. As air and water preceded life, so the niche, that hospitable environment that shelters adult stem cells in many tissues and provides factors necessary to keep them young and vital, must have emerged before its stem cell dependents.
La Jolla, CA – When it comes to cellular communication networks, a primitive single-celled microbe that answers to the name of Monosiga brevicollis has a leg up on animals composed of billions of cells. It commands a signaling network more elaborate and diverse than found in any multicellular organism higher up on the evolutionary tree, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have discovered.
La Jolla, CA – In recent years, stem cell researchers have become very adept at manipulating the fate of adult stem cells cultured in the lab. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies achieved the same feat with adult neural stem cells still in place in the brain. They successfully coaxed mouse brain stem cells bound to join the neuronal network to differentiate into support cells instead.
La Jolla, CA – The Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the Foundation for Prader-Willi Research (FPWR) today announced a partnership that will forge new research to study a rare genetic disorder that thwarts appetite regulation and leads to extreme obesity.
La Jolla, CA – Mammals have two types of light-sensitive detectors in the retina. Known as rod and cone cells, they are both necessary to picture their environment. However, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have found that eliminating a third sensor – cells expressing a photopigment called melanopsin that measures the intensity of incoming light – makes the circadian clock blind to light, yet leaves normal vision intact.
La Jolla, CA – Salk scientists Samuel L. Pfaff and Andrew Dillin have been selected as Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigators, HHMI announced today. Both join a prestigious group of the nation’s top biomedical researchers who share the coveted title given to science’s most innovative minds.
La Jolla, CA – Tatyana Sharpee, an assistant professor in the Salk Institute’s Laboratory for Computational Biology, has been named a 2008 Searle Scholar. She will receive $300,000 over the next three years in support of her research entitled “Computational Principles of Natural Sensory Processing.”
La Jolla, CA – Diabetic individuals have a significantly higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease but the molecular connection between the two remains unexplained. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies identified the probable molecular basis for the diabetes – Alzheimer’s interaction.
La Jolla, CA – Dr. Clodagh O’Shea, an assistant professor in the Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, has been awarded the 2008 Beckmann Young Investigator Award. She will receive $300,000 over a three-year period to develop new technologies for the rapid assembly and cell type-specific targeting of therapeutic viruses.
La Jolla, CA – Now that high school biology students can recite that genes are made of DNA, which is transcribed into messenger RNA (mRNA), which is then translated into protein, along comes a new class of molecules, sending students-and many scientists-scrambling for updated textbooks.
La Jolla, CA – The Salk Institute today announced the election of Gerald L. Parsky to its Board of Trustees. The Board unanimously approved the appointment at its recent meeting in New York City.
La Jolla, CA – Humans and fruitflies – those pesky little buggers that are irresistibly attracted to overripe fruit – share more than a sweet tooth. Both rely on the same insulin-regulated molecular pathway to maintain their energy balance when starved for food, reports a team of researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
La Jolla, CA – The Salk Institute today announced that it has received a $20 million grant from the Waitt Family Foundation. Ted Waitt is the President of the Waitt Family Foundation and the vice chairman of Salk’s Board of Trustees. The grant will fund the creation of an Advanced Biophotonics Center.
La Jolla, CA – Salk Institute professor Thomas Albright, who studies the neuronal basis of visual perception, has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. The Academy made the announcement today during its 145th annual meeting in Washington, DC. Election to the Academy recognizes distinguished and continuing achievements in original research, and is considered one of the highest honors accorded U.S. scientists.
