Biochemistry, Genetics, and Molecular Biology

A group of scientists was successful in creating small stomachs, also called 'gastric organoids,' from stem cells. Read on to find out how this creation works. 

A study conducted by a researcher suggests that the lifespan of a person is partly determined by the mitochondrial mutations he/she may inherit from the mother. These mutations can shorten the lifespan of a person by a third. Read on to find out more.

A group of researchers has developed a device that acts like the spleen to rid the body of infection and toxins. The artificial ‘biospleen’ uses a modified version of mannose-binding lectin (MBL). Read on to find out more. 

Masayo Takahashi, an ophthalmologist at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (CDB) in Kobe, is set to treat a human patient with induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Read on to find out more. 

Researcher Kamel Khalili and his team at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, used the CRISPR/Cas9 genome-editing system to remove HIV from several human cell lines, including microglia and T cells. Read on to find out more. 

Eduardo Marbán, a cardiologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, and his team have developed a method to keep heart cells outside the sinoatrial node beating, which is less invasive than fitting electronic pacemakers. Read on to find out more. 

Two research teams based in Germany and Spain have discovered that ASC specks—protein aggregations that drive inflammation—are released from dying immune cells. The protein aggregations are a component of inflammasomes, which sense pathogens and cell damage and set off innate immune inflammation. Read on to know more. 

Two international teams, one headed by Akhilesh Pandey and the other by Bernhard Küster, have independently analyzed human tissue samples using mass spectrometry and produced the first drafts of the human proteome. They discovered new complexities of the human genome and identified new proteins from regions of the genome previously thought to be non-coding. Read on for more details. 

Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, California observed that some microbes do not follow the DNA coding, which is considered to consist of a universal set of rules. These microbes interpret the genetic code differently and recode themselves. Read on to find out more.

Researchers from the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., created a semi-synthetic microbe, a genetically modified E. coli bacterium. They created two new nucleotides, X and Y, and fused them into the E. coli bacterium. Read on for more details.