If a human comes down with a rash, they might go to the doctor and come away with some ointment to put on it. Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins get skin conditions, too, but they come about their medication by queuing up nose-to-tail to rub themselves against corals. In the journal iScience on May 19, researchers show that these corals have medicinal properties, suggesting that the dolphins are using the marine invertebrates to medicate skin conditions.

The FAIRplus and EBiSC2 projects are joining forces to improve how ‘FAIR’ standards (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reusability) can be applied to human induced Pluripotent Stem Cell (iPSC) line data. The joint effort will improve how iPSC line data can be made more findable, standardized and reusable for researchers.

Following a heart attack, the human body is incapable of repairing lost tissue due to the heart’s inability to generate new muscle. However, treatment with heart progenitor cells could result in the formation of functional heart cells at injured sites. This new therapeutic approach is introduced by an international team in Nature Cell Biology. The aim is to start clinical studies within the next two years.

Human cell division involves hundreds of proteins at its core. Knowing the 3D structure of these proteins is pivotal to understand how our genetic material is duplicated and passed through generations. The groups of Andrea Musacchio and Stefan Raunser at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund are now able to reveal the first detailed structure of a key protein complex for human cell division known as CCAN. By using cryo-electron microscopy, the researchers show important features of the complex’s 16 components and challenge previous assumptions about how the complex is able to recognize the centromere, a crucial region of chromosomes in cell division.

The genetic origins of the first agriculturalists in the Neolithic period long seemed to lie in the Near East. A new study published in the journal Cell shows that the first farmers actually represented a mixture of Ice Age hunter-gatherer groups, spread from the Near East all the way to south-eastern Europe. Researchers from the University of Bern and the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics as well as from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and the University of Fribourg were involved in the study. The method they developed could help reveal other human evolution patterns with unmatched resolution.

Per- and polyfluorinated chemicals (PFAS) can have harmful effects on human health and the environment. They are still used in numerous everyday products. Together with an international team of researchers, scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon investigated water samples from German and Chinese rivers affected by industrial point sources. Using an innovative method, they identified almost 60 substances that are overlooked by conventional analysis of well-known PFAS. Eight substances were detected in the environment for the first time. The study has been published in Environmental Science & Technology today.

Scientists have created a new roadmap that traces each step in the development of blood stem cells in the human embryo, providing scientists with a blueprint for producing fully functional blood stem cells in the lab. The research could help expand treatment options for blood cancers like leukemia and inherited blood disorders such as sickle cell disease.

Although clinical labs have known for almost a century that a oddly shaped nucleus resembling pince-nez glasses in blood cells could indicate leukemia, the cause of this anomaly remained unknown. Scientists have now discovered that loss of nuclear Lamin B1 induces defects in the nuclear morphology and in human hematopoietic [blood-forming] stem cells associated with malignancy. The scientists went on to detail that lamin B1 deficiency alters genome organization. This in turn causes expansion of blood-forming stem cells, a bias towards their becoming myeloids, genome instability due to defective DNA damage repair and other problems that set the stage for cancer.

Although clinical labs have known for almost a century that a oddly shaped nucleus resembling pince-nez glasses in blood cells could indicate leukemia, the cause of this anomaly remained unknown. Scientists have now discovered that loss of nuclear Lamin B1 induces defects in the nuclear morphology and in human hematopoietic [blood-forming] stem cells associated with malignancy. The scientists went on to detail that lamin B1 deficiency alters genome organization. This in turn causes expansion of blood-forming stem cells, a bias towards their becoming myeloids, genome instability due to defective DNA damage repair and other problems that set the stage for cancer.

Scientists are using zebrafish to understand human skin cancer that attacks the hands and feet.

Scientists are using zebrafish to understand human skin cancer that attacks the hands and feet.

Researchers have identified a four-protein complex that appears to play a key role in generating ribosomes — organelles that serve as protein factories for cells — as well as a surprising part in neurodevelopmental disorders. The findings could lead to new ways to manipulate ribosome production, which could impact a variety of conditions that affect human health.

Thanks to antiretroviral therapy, HIV infection is no longer the life sentence it once was. But despite the effectiveness of drugs to manage and treat the virus, it can never be fully eliminated from the human body, lingering in some cells deep in different human tissues where it goes unnoticed by the immune system. Now, new research by University of Alberta immunologist Shokrollah Elahi reveals a possible answer to the mystery of why infected people can’t get rid of HIV altogether. Elahi and his team found that in HIV patients, killer T cells — a type of white blood cells responsible for identifying and destroying cells infected with viruses — have very little to none of a protein called CD73. Because CD73 is responsible for migration and cell movement into the tissue, the lack of the protein compromises the ability of killer T cells to find and eliminate HIV-infected cells, explained Elahi.

Bioengineers have shown they can eradicate advanced-stage ovarian and colorectal cancer in mice in as little as six days with a treatment that could be ready for human clinical trials later this year.

A new study shows how certain RNA molecules control the repair of damaged DNA in cancer cells, a discovery that could eventually give rise to better cancer treatments.

A research group has discovered the logic that controls gene regulation in human cells. In the future, this new knowledge can be applied to, for example, investigating cancers and other genetic diseases.

In the long-term battle between a herpesvirus and its human host, a virologist and her team of students have identified some human RNA able to resist the viral takeover — and the mechanism by which that occurs.

A research team introduces a new large-scale study on human transcription factors combining two state-of-the art interactomics methods that allow rapid identification of protein-protein interactions and extensive functional information of this important gene family.

Researchers have identified a previously unrecognized key player in cancer evolution: clusters of mutations occurring at certain regions of the genome. These mutation clusters contribute to the progression of about 10% of human cancers and can be used to predict patient survival.

Using data from over 100,000 malignant and non-malignant cells from 15 human brain metastases, researchers have revealed two functional archetypes of metastatic cells across 7 different types of brain tumors, each containing both immune and non-immune cell types. Their findings provide a potential roadmap for metastatic tumor formation that could be used to design therapies to improve the treatment of metastasized patients.

In many mammals including humans, the placenta invades the wall of the uterus during pregnancy in the same way that cancer cells invade surrounding tissues. Using genomic sequences and gene expression information, researchers were able to predict specific signaling proteins that drive the expression of genes that decrease the susceptibility of invasion in human cells. Using a custom fabricated bio chip, the researchers confirmed that these predicted proteins did in fact decrease the invasion of both cancer and placental cells.

Mice are typically used as models in advanced prostate cancer research, but the profound differences between them and humans has long bedeviled the translation of findings from the animal to success in people. Dogs however are the only other animal that suffers from a significant incidence of prostate cancer, and researchers are finding them much more enlightening subjects in identification of drugs that show promise for human patients.

Researchers developed a single-use sensor strip that can be used with a circuit board to detect cerebrospinal fluid leaks. They collected nine clinical samples and introduced the test fluid into a small liquid channel on the tip of the sensor strips. The liquid channel held electrodes, which contained antibodies specific to proteins found only in human cerebrospinal fluid. The circuit board analyzed the signal and produced a four-digit number that correlates to the concentration of the protein beta-2-transferrin, found in CSF.

Researchers have explored the cellular changes that occur in human mammary tissue in lactating and non-lactating women, offering insight into the relationship between pregnancy, lactation, and breast cancer.

Researchers have developed a computational approach to identify GSH sites with significantly higher potential for the safe insertion of therapeutic genes and their durable expression across many cell types. For two out of 2,000 predicted GSH sites, the team provided an in-depth validation with adoptive T cell therapies and in vivo gene therapies for skin diseases in mind. By engineering the identified GSH sites to carry a reporter gene in T cells, and a therapeutic gene in skin cells, respectively, they demonstrated safe and long-lasting expression of the newly introduced genes.