SCIENCE

The word “army” typically conjures up images of ground warfare. As the military’s DARPA program proves, some key innovations we enjoy today have emerged from military efforts. Here is an example of the U.S. Army aiming to deliver a way to use gene editing to convert waste materials into something useful. As part of an … Read more

Proteins are the workhorses of the cell. Mapping the precise shapes of the most important of these workhorses helps to unlock their life-supporting functions or, in the case of disease, potential for dysfunction. While the amino acid sequence of a protein provides the basis for its 3D structure, deducing the atom-by-atom map from principles of … Read more

For years, the foundations of cancer treatment were surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. Over the last two decades, targeted therapies like imatinib (Gleevec®)  and trastuzumab (Herceptin®) —drugs that target cancer cells by homing in on specific molecular changes seen primarily in those cells—have also cemented themselves as standard treatments for many cancers. But over the past several years, immunotherapy—therapies that enlist and … Read more

There is a fundamental problem at the heart of all cancers: cells that won’t stop dividing, or hyperproliferation, along with genomic instability. This runaway growth is what forms a tumor, and the abnormal cellular processes that drive this growth also thwarts therapies that target cancer cells. Despite more than six decades of research into the … Read more

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) is seeking commercial partners interested in developing a powerful new class of chemical probes that are capable of strongly inhibiting or inducing quorum sensing. Quorum sensing is a process used by some bacteria to coordinate behavior based on local population density. To communicate, bacteria release signaling molecules, including low … Read more

Gene editing has shown great promise as a non-heritable way to treat a wide range of conditions, including many genetic diseases and more recently, even COVID-19. Now, a version of the CRISPR gene-editing tool could help deliver long-lasting pain relief without the risk of addiction associated with prescription opioid drugs. In work recently published in … Read more

Dr. Derrick Rossi is a leading innovator doing work on some of today’s most promising and exciting therapies in the life sciences. Dr. Rossi, currently the CEO of the biotech startup Convelo, also helped found three other promising startups that are working to bring advanced treatments to patients: Moderna, Magenta Therapeutics, and Intellia Therapeutics. These … Read more

Scientists and oncologists at the National Cancer Institute share their thoughts on the NEXT HORIZON IN PRECISION ONCOLOGY – proteogenomics. In a recently published article on April 1, 2021 in the journal Cell, Drs. Henry Rodriguez, Jean Claude Zenklusen, Louis Staudt, James Doroshow, and Douglas Lowy at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of … Read more

Changes that affect the structure of chromosomes can cause problems with growth, development, and function in all living systems. This is because changes can affect many genes along the chromosome and disrupt the proteins made from those genes. Structural changes can occur during the formation of egg or sperm cells (germline), in early fetal development, … Read more

NASA is investigating two potential applications of synthetic biology—one to advance nutrition and one to increase in-space manufacturing capabilities. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station receive regular resupply shipments from Earth, providing them with nutritious food during their expeditions. Future astronauts on the journey to Mars will be much farther away, outside the reach of … Read more