Scientists at Penn State and Duke University have identified a gene associated with regeneration of injured nerve cells. The team, led by Melissa Rolls, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State, has found that a mutation in a single gene can entirely shut down the process by which axons -- the parts of the nerve cell that are responsible for sending signals to other cells--regrow themselves after being cut or damaged. We are hopeful that this discovery will open the door to new research related to spinal-cord and other neurological disorders in humans, Rolls said.

A team of Penn State scientists has devised a new strategy for reactivating genes that cause cancer tumors to shrink and die, and tested it in mice with promising results. The researchers hope their discovery will one day aid in the development of an anti-cancer drug that effectively and selectively targets cancerous tissue.

Scientists at Penn State have achieved a major milestone in the attempt to assemble, in a test tube, entire chromosomes from their component parts. The achievement reveals the process a cell uses to package the basic building blocks of an organism's entire genetic code -- its genome. The evidence provided by early research with the new procedure overturns three previous theories of the genome-packaging process and opens the door to a new era of genome-wide biochemistry research. A paper describing the team's achievement will be published in the journal Science on May 20.

John T. Lis, the Barbara McClintock professor of molecular biology and genetics at Cornell University, will present the 2010-11 Robert T. Simpson Memorial Lecture in Molecular Medicine at 4 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 18, in 101 Althouse Laboratory on the Penn State University Park campus. In this free public lecture, titled "New Views of Local and Genome-wide Transcription Regulation In Vivo," Lis will explore how genes are turned on and off. The lecture is sponsored by the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Two free public lectures will explore the promise of metallobiochemistry for society on the evening of June 5, as part of the 29th Summer Symposium in Molecular Biology. The first public lecture, titled "Understanding and Improving Platinum Anticancer Drugs," will be given by Stephen J. Lippard, Arthur Amos Noyes professor of chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at 6:45 p.m. on June 5, in room 100 of the Life Sciences Building on Penn State's University Park campus. The second lecture, titled "Electron Flow Through Metalloproteins," will be given by Harry B. Gray, Arnold O. Beckman professor of chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, at 7:30 p.m. in the same location.