Scientists know a good deal about Huntington’s disease, an inherited neurodegenerative disorder that slowly robs patients of their physical and mental health. They know, for example, that it is caused by mutations to a particular gene; that these mutations involve the excessive repetition of tiny stretches of DNA bases known as CAG repeats; and that... View Article| Seek
Tucked behind the circulation desk inside Rockefeller’s Rita and Frits Markus Library, readers can find Rockefeller student dissertations dating back to 1959, the year of the university’s first convocation. On this storied bookcase sits early work that developed into biomedical breakthroughs, from revealing the chemical structure of antibodies to demystifying the circadian clock to explicating... View Article| Seek
Mere weeks into human embryonic development, an indistinct ball of cells called a blastocyst rearranges itself into an orderly three-layered structure—a process called gastrulation that sets up the eventual emergence of the human form. Understanding the molecular underpinnings of this pivotal event could help scientists prevent miscarriages and head off a host of serious disorders.... View Article| Seek
Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is a wily foe, adept at bobbing and weaving around the immune system and antibiotics alike, and sometimes lying dormant for years. “It’s a very smart bacterium, with a lot of tricks,” says Shixin Liu, head of the Laboratory of Nanoscale Biophysics and Biochemistry. Liu has pulled the curtain back on one... View Article| Seek
cancer has an unsettling ability to circumvent our natural defenses, growing and metastasizing from one place to another despite the body’s best efforts to contain it. Now, Rockefeller researchers have shown how the disease appears to be co-opting the nervous system to extend its reach. Previous studies had shown that cancer and the nervous system... View Article| Seek