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.
La Jolla, CA – Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in collaboration with scientists at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) took a high resolution “action shot” of a protein switch that plays a crucial role in the development of the nervous system. Their findings, published in the Dec. 8 issue of the journal Molecular Cell, provide a template for the design of small molecule inhibitors to control that switch, a protein called Scp1, at will.
La Jolla, CA —Dr. Andrew Dillin, an assistant professor in the Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, has been selected for the 2007 McKnight Neuroscience of Brain Disorders Award. He will receive $300,000 over a three-year period to study “age-associated neuroprotection by insulin/IGF-1 signaling.”
La Jolla, CA – Professors Terrence J. Sejnowski and Inder Verma have been awarded the distinction of AAAS Fellow. Election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science is an honor bestowed upon members by their peers.
La Jolla, CA – Chop off a salamander’s leg and a brand new one will sprout in no time. But most animals have lost the ability to replace missing limbs. Now, a research team at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies has been able to regenerate a wing in a chick embryo – a species not known to be able to regrow limbs – suggesting that the potential for such regeneration exists innately in all vertebrates, including humans.
La Jolla, CA – When you dial 911 you expect rescuers to pull up at your front door, unload and get busy – not park the truck down the street and eat donuts.
La Jolla, CA – The Salk Institute for Biological Studies today announced that Dr. Richard Murphy will retire from his position of President and CEO on July 1, 2007. Murphy, 62, has served in this capacity since Oct. 1, 2000. Murphy made his announcement at the Nov. 10 meeting of the Salk Institute’s Board of Trustees.
La Jolla, CA – Having your heart in the right place usually means having it located on the left side of your body. But just how a perfectly symmetrical embryo settles on what’s right and what’s left has fascinated developmental biologists for a long time. The turning point came when the rotational beating of cilia, hair-like structures found on most cells, was identified as essential to the process.
La Jolla, CA – Targeted tumor therapy lobs toxic payloads directly into tumors to destroy cancer cells while leaving normal cells unharmed. In the case of radiotherapy, these missiles, which should unerringly home in on the target and make it implode, consist of radioactive bullets guided by small molecules – known as agonists – that recognize and then activate specific receptors over-expressed on the surface of tumor cells.
