A $1.7 million grant through the National Institutes of Health is helping researchers led by Michael DeGiorgio, assistant professor of biology and Institute for CyberScience co-hire, understand how much influence natural selection has had on humans' evolutionary path.
A new method allows researchers to systematically identify specialized proteins that unpack DNA inside the nucleus of a cell, making the usually dense DNA more accessible for gene expression and other functions.
Feng Yue, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State College of Medicine, has been awarded a five-year, $1.91 million Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award from the National Institutes of Health.
Whether using embryonic or adult stem cells, coercing these master cells to convert to the desired target cell and reproduce flawlessly is difficult. Now an international team of researchers has a two-part system that can convert the cells to the targets and then remove the remnants of that conversion, leaving only the desired DNA behind to duplicate.
The undergraduate work of Schreyer Scholars helped a Penn State biochemistry professor on a publication that could lead to more accessible scientific research.
A nanoscale product of human cells that was once considered junk is now known to play an important role in intercellular communication and in many disease processes, including cancer metastasis. Researchers at Penn State have developed nanoprobes to rapidly isolate these rare markers, called extracellular vesicles (EVs), for potential development of precision cancer diagnoses and personalized anticancer treatments.
DNA, the molecule that contains all of our genetic information, could also be the future of nanotechnology, according to a paper recently published by a research team headed by Julio Palma, a chemistry faculty member at Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus.
Idan Shalev, assistant professor in the Department of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State, is a 2015 recipient of the Rising Star Award, presented by the Association for Psychological Science. Shalev has been recognized for his innovative work in genetic markers of stress and aging.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Nicotine is an addictive substance and genetic factors are known to play a role in smoking behaviors. Recently, a team of researchers at Penn State and the University of Colorado determined how small differences in a particular region of the mouse genome can alter nicotine consumption.
Children experiencing chronic stress from a disadvantaged life have shorter telomeres than their advantaged peers, according to a study led by Dr. Daniel Notterman, vice dean for research and graduate studies, and professor of pediatrics, and biochemistry and molecular biology, Penn State College of Medicine.
For more than half a century scientists have looked on the DNA molecule as life's blueprint, but biological engineers are beginning to see the molecule not as a static plan, but more like a snippet of life's computer code that they can program. Penn State researchers are now unraveling the mystery of how nature codes and recodes this program to address some of the world's biggest challenges, says Howard Salis, assistant professor of biological engineering and chemical engineering.
A wide range of biologically inspired materials may now be possible by combining protein studies, materials science and RNA sequencing, according to an international team of researchers.
Children with autism have increased levels of genetic change in regions of the genome prone to DNA rearrangements, so-called "hotspots," according to a research discovery to be published in the print edition of the journal Human Molecular Genetics. The research indicates that these genetic changes come in the form of an excess of duplicated DNA segments in hotspot regions and may affect the chances that a child will develop autism -- a behavioral disorder that affects about 1 of every 88 children in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The research collaboration was led by a team from Penn State's Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Eric C. Greene, an associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at Columbia University and an Early Career Scientist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, will present the 2012/2013 Robert T. Simpson Memorial Lecture in Molecular Medicine at 4 p.m. Feb. 11, in 101 Althouse Laboratory. This free public lecture, titled "Visualizing Protein-DNA Interactions at the Single-molecule Level Using DNA Curtains," will focus on the molecular mechanisms that cells use to repair, maintain and decode their genetic information. The lecture is sponsored by the department of biochemistry and molecular biology.
Greene's laboratory has pioneered novel technologies for studying protein-DNA interactions at the single-molecule level. This work relies on a technique called total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy, which Greene and his colleagues use to visualize proteins as they interact with specific sections of the DNA molecule. This technique allows Greene's lab to directly visualize on the order of 100 to 1,000 individual DNA molecules within a single field of view, along with any fluorescently tagged proteins that are bound to the DNA. This technology was developed specifically as a flexible experimental platform adaptable to the study of a wide range of protein nucleic-acid interactions.
The U.S. Supreme Court has decided three cases over the last three years on the Sixth Amendment right of criminal defendants to confront the forensic scientists or technicians who perform laboratory tests. Professor David H. Kaye and his two co-authors of The New Wigmore, A Treatise on Evidence: Expert Evidence (2d ed. 2011) were among the first academic lawyers to analyze the issue in detail. In the latest case on the subject, Williams v. Illinois, decided June 18, the Supreme Court took notice.
