Science News About Pioneer Awardees
2011
- Immunity Against the Cold
December 12, 2011
Ability of brown fat to burn calories linked to immune cells, say UCSF researchers.
- Blink of an eye: Stanford researchers are redefining how the brain plans movement
August 11, 2011
New neurological measurement technologies and algorithms are allowing researchers a more complete look into how the brain functions.
- Study Finds Brain Regions Go Offline at Different Intervals
April 12, 2011
A new study shows that, rather than being an “all or nothing” phenomenon, regions of the human brain go silent at different times through the night, losing their ability to communicate during certain phases of sleep.
- Missed Connections
April 7, 2011
A surprising percentage of people with autism also suffer from seizures, but doctors have been baffled by this overlap for decades. Now, various groups of scientists have begun exploring how the same genetic risk factors and aberrations in nerve signaling in early brain development might underlie both these disorders.
- The Daily Show Interview with Miguel A. Nicolelis, M.D., Ph.D.
March 29, 2011
Miguel A. Nicolelis, M.D., Ph.D., appeared on Comedy Central’s Daily Show to discuss how research, supported in part by his 2010 Pioneer Award, could enable paralyzed people to walk again with a robotic vest that moves according to brain commands. Dr. Nicolelis also is the recipient of an unrelated NIH Director’s Transformative R01 Award.
- New findings on drug tolerance in TB suggest ideas for shorter cures
March 3, 2011
New findings on how tuberculosis (TB) bacteria develop multi-drug tolerance point to ways TB infections might be cured more quickly.
- Researchers closer to creating synthetic blood
January 18, 2011
A group of UNC researchers is closer to realizing the capabilities of synthetic blood due to the findings of a recent study.
- Team Develops Groundbreaking Technology to Detect Alzheimer’s Disease
January 10, 2011
Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute, have developed a novel technology that is able to detect the presence of immune molecules specific to Alzheimer’s disease in patients’ blood samples.
- Brain biology may dictate social networks
January 4, 2011
A new study by a Northeastern University researcher and her colleagues indicates that the size of a certain part of the human brain plays a significant role in determining the breadth of social relationships.
- Understanding the anesthetized brain
January 3, 2011
Since 1846, when a Boston dentist named William Morton gave the first public demonstration of general anesthesia using ether, scientists and doctors have tried to figure out what happens to the brain during general anesthesia.
2010
- Uncovering the neurobiological basis of general anesthesia
December 29, 2010
Review article delineates similarities with and differences from sleep and coma.
- Process Leading to Protein Diversity in Cells Important for Proper Neuron Firing
November 17, 2010
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have documented a novel form of splicing in the cytoplasm of a nerve cell, which dictates a special form of a potassium channel protein in the outer membrane.
- Scientists find signals that make cell nucleus blow up like a balloon
October 14, 2010
Size matters when it comes to the nucleus of a cell, and now scientists have discovered the signals that control how big the nucleus gets.
- MIT researchers develop a better way to see molecules at work in living brain cells
October 7, 2010
By creating a better way to see molecules at work in living brain cells, researchers affiliated with MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the MIT Department of Chemistry are helping elucidate molecular mechanisms of synapse formation.
- Repeated antibiotic use alters gut's composition of beneficial microbes, study shows
September 13, 2010
Repeated use of an antibiotic that is considered generally benign, because users seldom incur obvious side effects, induces cumulative and persistent changes in the composition of the beneficial microbial species inhabiting the human gut, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have found.
- Delicate touch – New nanoscale transistors allow sensitive probing inside cells
August 12, 2010
Chemists and engineers at Harvard University have fashioned nanowires into a new type of V-shaped transistor small enough to be used for sensitive probing of the interior of cells.
- Small molecule boosts production of brain cells, protects new cells from dying, UT Southwestern researchers find
July 8, 2010
UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found a compound that preserves newly created brain cells and boosts learning and memory in an animal study.
- Map of Herpes Virus Protein Suggests a New Drug Therapy
July 6, 2010
The mechanism by which a herpes virus invades cells has remained a mystery to scientists seeking to thwart this family of viruses.
- Same types of cell respond differently to stimulus, study shows
June 27, 2010
Using new technology that allows scientists to monitor how individual cells react in the complex system of cell signaling, Stanford University researchers have uncovered a much larger spectrum of differences between each cell than ever seen before.
- Penn Researchers Add Genetic Data to Archaeology and Linguistics to Get Picture of African Population History
May 26, 2010
Genetic researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have combined data from existing archaeological and linguistic studies of Africa with human genetic data to shed light on the demographic history of the continent from which all human activity emerged.
- New insights into the mystery of natural HIV immunity
May 6, 2010
A new finding from the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard may have implications for designing an effective AIDS vaccine.
- Scientists Make Fundamental Discovery about How Gene Expression Functions in Bacteria
April 22, 2010
Finding Could Pave the Way for New Targets for Antimicrobial Therapy.
- Stanford advances vastly expand versatility of optogenetics brain-research technique
March 18, 2010
Recently, brain researchers have gained a powerful new way to troubleshoot neural circuits associated with depression, Parkinson’s disease and other conditions in small animals such as rats.
- Genes, Environment, or Chance?
February 18, 2010
Biologists attribute variations among individual organisms to differences in genes or environment, or both. But a new study of nematode worms with identical genes, raised in identical environments, has revealed another factor: chance.
- BME Researchers Discover How Superbugs Become Resistant to Antibiotics
February 11, 2010
Many people with bacterial infections stop taking antibiotics when their symptoms improve, thereby allowing the hardy bacteria that survive to multiply and potentially mount a more powerful defense against future applications of the same drug.
- Columbia Researchers Identify Regional Clusters of Autism Cases in California
February 2, 2010
A Columbia study has determined there are certain geographical areas in California where newborns are more likely to develop autism.
- Scripps Research scientists create new way to screen libraries of 10 million or more compounds
February 1, 2010
The search for new drug compounds is probably worse than looking for a needle in a haystack because scientists are limited in the size of the haystacks they can rummage through.
- University of Wisconsin Researchers Explore Assessments of Consciousness
January 27, 2010
The brains of people under anesthesia respond to stimuli as they do in the deepest part of sleep – lending credence to a developing theory of consciousness and suggesting a new method to assess loss of consciousness in conditions such as coma.
- Needling Molecules
January 12, 2010
A simple method may solve the problem of getting stuff into cells.
More Science News About Pioneer Awardees...
Up to Top
