BiotechMashup

(Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions) On rare occasion, the light-sensing photoreceptor cells in the eye misfire and signal to the brain as if they have captured photons, when in reality they haven't. For years this phenomenon remained a mystery. Reporting in the June 10 issue of Science, neuroscientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have discovered that a light-capturing pigment molecule in photoreceptors can be triggered by heat, as well, giving rise to these false alarms.

(Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions) Scientists at Johns Hopkins report using a laser beam to activate a protein that makes a cluster of fruit fly cells act like a school of fish turning in social unison, following the lead of the one stimulated with light.

(Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions) Congenital stationary night blindness, an inherited condition that affects one's ability to see in the dark, is caused by a mutation in a calcium channel protein that shuttles calcium into and out of cells. Now, researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have teased apart the molecular mechanism behind this mutation, uncovering a more general principle of how cells control calcium levels.

(Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions) Having discovered a dramatic increase of an easy-to-detect enzyme in the red blood cells of people with diabetes and prediabetes, Johns Hopkins scientists say the discovery could lead to a simple, routine test for detecting the subtle onset of the disease, before symptoms or complications occur and in time to reverse its course.

(Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions) Building on a tool that they developed in yeast four years ago, researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine scanned the human genome and discovered what they believe is the reason people have such a variety of physical traits and disease risks.

(Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions) Nine Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine postdoctoral fellows recently were awarded fellowships.

(Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions) Using human breast cancer cells and the protein that causes fireflies to glow, a Johns Hopkins team has shed light on why some breast cancer cells become resistant to the anticancer effects of the drug tamoxifen. The key is a discovery of two genetic "dimmer switches" that apparently control how a breast cancer gene responds to the female hormone estrogen.

(Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions) Two genetics researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have been awarded prestigious honorary Doctor of Medicine degrees by European scientific institutions.

(Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions) By tracking the flow of information in a cell preparing to split, Johns Hopkins scientists have identified a protein mechanism that coordinates and regulates the dynamics of shape change necessary for division of a single cell into two daughter cells.