Diana Bogorodskaya, a graduate student in Biological Sciences pursuing her PhD research in the Ligon lab, has been accepted to the NSF BIO 2017: I-Corps Bio-Entrepreneurship Workshop at California State University in San Diego. This highly competitive workshop gives participants the opportunity to work with industry professionals to learn about biotechnology commercialization and explore entrepreneurial opportunities that build on basic research.
An antioxidant found in green tea may increase levels of p53, a natural anti-cancer protein, known as the “guardian of the genome” for its ability to repair DNA damage or destroy cancerous cells.
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A new grant from the National Institute On Aging at the National Institutes of Health will support ongoing research at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to address Alzheimer’s disease caused by gene mutations. According to Chunyu Wang, the principal investigator and an assistant professor of biological sciences at Rensselaer, the project seeks to understand and counter the mechanism that produces Amyloid-Beta 42 peptide in brain cells.
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An analysis of an exhaustive dataset on cells essential to the mammalian immune system shows that our ability to fight disease may rely more heavily on daily circadian cycles than previously assumed.
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An estimated 50 million people worldwide live with dementia, a syndrome that progressively affects a person’s cognitive function. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, but a full understanding of the mechanisms behind how and why it occurs remains elusive.
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Armed with evidence that a specific site on heparan sulfate — known as the 3-O-sulfate group — is critical to the transfer of harmful tau proteins in the brain, a research program funded by the NIH’s National Institute of Aging is scrutinizing the interactions between heparan sulfate and tau, determining how misfolded tau spreads in the brain, and developing strategies to block it.
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Dr. Jennifer Hurley recently gave a plenary talk at a mini symposium entitled “Interdisciplinary Views of Chronobiology” in Santiago at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile November 28, 2016. Five experts in the field of chronobiology including Dr. Hurley were invited to present their varied perspectives on Chronobiological research and how the field is advancing. The inaugural symposium is the first in a series and was organized to expose and encourage graduate students in Chile to think about research from an international and interdisciplinary standpoint. Dr.
“A recent ASBMB Today article discussed the results of a collaboration between the labs of George Makhatadze of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Nadia Roan of the University of California, San Francisco. The paper, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, discussed the ability of a small molecule gallic acid to reduce HIV infectivity associated with protein aggregates found in semen.
Dr. Jennifer Hurley, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, has just received an award through an U01 cooperative agreement funded by the Department of Defense and the NIH National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering titled, “Multiscale Modeling of Circadian Rhythms”. The total award is $3,932,000 with Dr. Hurley’s funding at $580,000. The lead PI is Dr. William Cannon of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory with Drs.
Matt Schuler, post-doctoral research associate in the Rick Relyea Lab, recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences a study about how lizards might respond to a changing climate in different types of landscapes.