La Jolla, CA – Like any new kid on the block that tries to fit in, newborn brain cells need to find their place within the existing network of neurons. The newcomers jump right into the fray and preferentially reach out to mature brain cells that are already well connected within the established circuitry, report scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in the online edition of Nature Neuroscience.
La Jolla, CA – The Salk Institute for Biological Studies today announced the appointment of Dr. Marsha A. Chandler to the new position of Executive Vice President/Chief Operating Officer. The Salk Board of Trustees unanimously approved the appointment at its meeting in New York City on April 26.
La Jolla, CA – In studies going back to the 1930’s, mice and many other species subsisting on a severely calorie-restricted diet have consistently outlived their well-fed peers by as much as 40 percent. But just how a diet verging on the brink of starvation extends lifespan has remained elusive.
La Jolla, CA – Salk Institute professor Ursula Bellugi, who pioneered the study of the biological foundation of language, has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. The Academy made the announcement today during its 144th 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 a U.S. scientist.
La Jolla, CA – Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have identified an enzyme that pumps up a cell’s ability to maintain healthy muscle and restores normal muscle function in genetically engineered mice with weak muscles. The study, published online in Nature Medicine, is the first to explore the part this enzyme plays in a cascade of events triggered by exercise-induced hormones and other signals.
La Jolla, CA – Ronald M. Evans, Ph.D., Professor in the Salk Institute’s Gene Expression Laboratory and a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator, has been named a recipient of the 2007 Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research – America’s top prize in medicine.
La Jolla, CA – Cilia, tiny hair-like structures that propel mucus out of airways, have to agree on the direction of the fluid flow to get things moving. Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies discovered a novel two-step mechanism that ensures that all cilia beat in unison.
La Jolla, CA – Scientists have identified three different signals that indicate damage to chloroplasts – the photosynthetic factories of plant cells that give plants their green color – but little is known about how the signal gets passed on to the nucleus. Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies made a big step towards explaining how chloroplasts let a cell’s nucleus know when things start to go wrong at the periphery so nuclear gene expression can be adjusted accordingly.
La Jolla, CA – “Green” means “go,” but what does “red” mean? Just about everybody says “stop” since we all have learned to imbue certain colors with meaning (or we would be road kill by now). Long thought to be limited to higher levels of information processing, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies successfully traced this type of associative learning to early stages of the visual processing pathway.
La Jolla, CA – Jack’s magical beans may have produced beanstalks that grew and grew into the sky, but something about normal, run-of-the-mill plants limits their reach upward. For more than a century, scientists have tried to find out which part of the plant both drives and curbs growth: is it a shoot’s outer waxy layer? Its inner layer studded with chloroplasts? Or the vascular system that moves nutrients and water? The answer could have great implications for modern agriculture, which desires a modern magical bean or two.
La Jolla, CA – Although the Galápagos finches were to play a pivotal role in the inception of Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection, he had no inkling of their significance when he collected them during his voyage on the HMS Beagle.
La Jolla, CA – Knocking out the gene for a peptide associated with insulin secretion protects mice against the harmful effects of a high-fat diet, report researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Their findings, detailed in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that urocortin 3, a new peptide recently discovered in the insulin secreting cells of the pancreas, plays a role in the increased production of insulin in response to high caloric intake in animals.
La Jolla, CA – The ability to hit a baseball or play a piano well is part practice and part innate talent. One side of the equation required for skilled performances has its roots in the architecture of the brain genetically determined before birth, say scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Practice takes no explaining, just persistence.
La Jolla, CA – Form does follow function, as far as visual cortex neurons tasked with perceiving action are concerned. Far from being the static nerve cells researchers believed them to be, capable of performing only a single function, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies found these neurons rapidly shift back and forth between two ways of collecting information about moving objects.
La Jolla, CA – Researchers have long said they won't be able to understand the brain until they can put together a "wiring diagram" – a map of how billions of neurons are interconnected. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have jumped what many believe to be a major hurdle to preparing that chart: identifying all of the connections to a single neuron.
La Jolla, CA – Every time a cell repairs or replicates its DNA, the resulting single strand is wrapped up by a dedicated protein complex. In eukaryotes or organisms whose cells have a nucleus, this job is handled by a tripartite complex called replication protein A (RPA). Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have now unearthed a novel RPA-like complex that specifically homes in on the short single-stranded DNA “tail” end of yeast chromosomes.
La Jolla, CA – Wielding a palette of chromosome paints, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have taken a step closer to understanding the relationship between aging and cancer by visualizing chromosomes of cells from patients with a heritable premature aging disease known as Werner Syndrome.
La Jolla, CA – Nobody questions that the color of our eyes is encoded in our genes. When it comes to behavior the concept of “DNA as fate” quickly breaks down – it’s been long accepted that both genes and the environment shape human behavior. But just how much sway the environment holds over our genetic destiny has been difficult to untangle.
La Jolla, CA – The National Academy of Sciences has selected Joseph R. Ecker, professor in the Plant Biology Laboratory and director of the Salk Institute Genomic Analysis Laboratory, to receive the 2007 John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science “for contributions in the areas of ethylene signal transduction and Arabidopsis genomics that have paved the way for a revolution in modern agriculture.”
La Jolla, CA – A few glimpses are enough to perceive a seamless and richly detailed visual world. But instead of "photographic snapshots," information about the color, shape and motion of an object is pulled apart and sent through individual nerve cells, or neurons, to the visual center in the brain. How the brain puts the scene back to together has been hotly debated ever since neurons were discovered over a century ago.
