Researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston have developed a new “nanobiotechnology” that enables magnetic control of events at the cellular level. They describe the technology, which could lead to finely-tuned but noninvasive treatments for disease, in the January issue of Nature Nanotechnology.

Don Ingber, MD, PhD, and Robert Mannix, PhD, of Children’s program in Vascular Biology, in collaboration with Mara Prentiss, PhD, a physicist at Harvard University, devised a way to get tiny beads – 30 nanometers (billionths of a meter) in diameter – to bind to receptor molecules on the cell surface.

When exposed to a magnetic field, the beads themselves become magnets, and pull together through magnetic attraction.

The molecular machinery behind gene transcription -- the intricate transfer of information from a segment of DNA to a corresponding strand of messenger RNA -- isn't stationed in special "transcription factories" within a cell nucleus, according to Cornell researchers. Instead, the enzyme RNA polymerase II (Pol II) and other key molecules can assemble at the site of an activated gene, regardless of the gene's position.

The findings, published in the Dec. 28, 2007, issue of the journal Molecular Cell, are the result of an ongoing collaboration between the laboratories of John T. Lis, the Barbara McClintock Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics, and Watt W. Webb, professor of applied physics and the S.B. Eckert Professor in Engineering.

Using the powerful one-two combo of NASA’s Swift satellite and the Gemini Observatory, astronomers have detected a mysterious type of cosmic explosion farther back in time than ever before. The explosion, known as a short gamma-ray burst (GRB), took place 7.4 billion years ago, more than halfway back to the Big Bang.

"This discovery dramatically moves back the time at which we know short GRBs were exploding. The short burst is almost twice as far as the previous confirmed record holder," says John Graham of the Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Md.

Donated, freeze-dried tendon grafts loaded with gene therapy may soon offer effective repair of injured tendons, a goal that has eluded surgeons to date.

According to study data published today in Molecular Therapy, a new graft technique may provide the first effective framework around which flexor tendon tissue can reorganize as it heals. Such tissue-engineering approaches could significantly improve repair of anterior cruciate ligaments and rotator cuffs as well, researchers said. The study was in a mouse model designed to resemble hard-to-repair flexor tendons in human hands, and the results should provide an impetus for future clinical trials.

Scientists at University College London have discovered how two proteins called BERT and ERNI interact in embryos to control when different organ systems in the body start to form, deepening our understanding of the development of the brain and nervous system and expanding our knowledge of stem cell behavior.

The new research published this week in PLoS Biology solves the puzzle of how vertebrates prioritize the order in which they begin to develop different sets of structures. During development, only a few signals instruct cells to form thousands of cell types, so the timing of how cells interpret these signals is critical.

It seems like common sense but a new study adds empirical weight to commonly held beliefs about health:

1) Don't smoke
2) Exercise
3) Moderate alcohol intake
4) Eating 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day

People who do those four things live on average an additional fourteen years of life compared with people who adopt none of these behaviors, according to a study published in PLoS Medicine.

The results of this study need to be confirmed in other populations and an analysis of how the combined health behaviors affect quality of life is also needed but the results of the study suggest that these four achievable lifestyle changes could have a marked improvement on the health of middle-aged and older people.

The Commonwealth Fund has issued another indictment of US health care, this one stating that the United States showed the least improvement among 19 countries when it comes to preventable deaths. The new research is published in the January/February issue of Health Affairs and advances their belief that government-controlled health care would be better for U.S. patients than the current system.

The top performers in the survey were France, Japan, and Australia and the authors say there would have been 101,000 fewer deaths in the U.S.

Mauve Majesty is one cool lily look-alike. This new pinkish-purple ornamental flower, just patented by Cornell, can last for two weeks in a vase, but when left in the garden, it blooms all summer long in the cooler, northern states until the first hard freeze in the fall.

The new hybrid of the Inca lily (Alstroemeria), which was developed by a Cornell professor, is a non-fragrant perennial that is set apart by its lavender-lilac flower color (which is adorned with dark speckling and a creamy yellow throat), its strong, upright flower stems and its winter hardiness. In greenhouses, the new hybrid never goes dormant and grows year-round.

A favorite book of mine is Evolution: A Scientific American Reader, a collection of articles on astronomy, cell biology, paleontology and anthropology from the print magazine. One of my favorite chapters, "Skin Deep" by Nina Jablonski and George Chaplin, covers the evolution of human skin color. Skin color results from the presence of the pigment melanin, an organic molecule that absorbs UV radiation and neutralizes free-radicals produced by UV radiation. Why do we need worry about UV radiation? UV radiation causes mutations in skin cells leading to skin cancer, and also destroys the essential B vitamin, folate, which is involved in DNA synthesis. The more melanin, the more protection against UV radiation and the darker the skin. Hmm, if that is the case, why do not all humans have dark skin? Better to protect against cancer then, isn't it? Figure from Barsh GS (2003) What Controls Variation in Human Skin Color? PLoS Biol 1(1): e27 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0000027. A traditional skin color map based on the data of Biasutti. Reproduced from http://anthro.palomar.edu/vary/ with permission from Dennis O'Neil.

A team of U.S., Israeli and German scientists used computational biology techniques to discover 480 genes that play a role in human cell division and to identify more than 100 of those genes that have an abnormal pattern of activation in cancer cells.

Malignant cells have lost control of the replication process, so detecting differences in cell cycle gene activation in normal and malignant cells provides important clues about how cancers develop, said Ziv Bar-Joseph, a Carnegie Mellon University computational biologist who led the study. These genes also are potential targets for drug therapy.

Unlike many cancer studies, which seek to identify “missing” genes that might cause cancer, this new research shows that genes can contribute to cancer in less obvious ways.