The Human Dynasty

Two new studies reveal a way to increase the body’s appetite for gobbling up the cancer stem cells responsible for acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a form of cancer with a particularly poor survival rate. The key is targeting a protein on the surface of those cells that sends a “don’t eat me” signal to the macrophage immune cells that serve as a first line of defense, according to new reports.

Researchers have identified the gene that is mutated in a hereditary form of a rare neuroendocrine tumor called paraganglioma. The gene, called hSDH5, is required for activation of an enzyme complex that plays a critical role in the chemical reactions that take place within cells to convert biochemical energy into usable energy.

(Cell Press) In a paper publishing online July 23 in Cell Stem Cell, a Cell Press journal, Dr. Shaorong Gao and colleagues from the National Institute of Biological Sciences in Beijing, China, report an important advance in the characterization of reprogrammed induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs.

(University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center) Expression of a single gene programs an immune system helper T cell that fuels rapid growth and diversification of antibodies in a cellular structure implicated in autoimmune diseases and development of B cell lymphoma, scientists at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reported today in Science Express, the advance online publication of the journal Science.

(New York- Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center/Weill Cornell Medical College) Researchers from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center have discovered a new gene fusion that is highly expressed in a subset of prostate cancers.

(University of Utah Health Sciences) University of Utah researchers and their colleagues have identified the gene that is mutated in a hereditary form of a rare neuroendocrine tumor called paraganglioma. The gene, called hSDH5, is required for activation of an enzyme complex that plays a critical role in the chemical reactions that take place within cells to convert biochemical energy into usable energy.

(Elhuyar Fundazioa) The micropalaeontology team at the Department of Stratigraphy and Palaeontology at the University of the Basque Country is working on the study of microfossils under the direction of Mr. Julio Rodríguez Lázaro. The concentrations of these types of fossils and the composition of their shells can provide much information about the conditions of life thousands or even millions of years ago.

Researchers have shed new light on a process that fixes breaks in the genetic material of the body’s cells. Their findings could lead to ways of enhancing chemotherapy drugs that destroy cancer cells by damaging their DNA.

Adolescent alcohol use and behavior problems are influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. New findings show that behavioral problems may represent an earlier manifestation of a genetic predisposition to subsequent alcohol problems. Females may also be more susceptible to a variety of environmental influences than males.

Twenty-five percent of Crohn’s disease patients have a mutation in what is called the NOD2 gene, but it is not precisely known how this mutation influences the disease. Researchers have now provided new insight into how this might occur.