Life Science

University of British Columbia scientists have found what could be an important cause of obesity.

Stain-free gel chemistry uses a unique compound, which, when activated, reacts with tryptophan residues in the protein sample to emit a fluorescence signal. This allows the quick visualization of proteins without any staining steps. In addition, stain-free gel chemistry makes it possible to use total protein levels as a loading control rather than the housekeeping proteins used in traditional western blotting protocols. This negates the need to strip and reprobe blots and prevents any attendant errors that can be introduced at this step.

A research group at Umeå University has managed to capture and describe a protein structure that, until now, has been impossible to study. The discovery lays the base for developing designed enzymes as catalysts to new chemical reactions for instance in biotechnological applications. The result of the study is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Weizmann Institute scientists develop an “olfactory fingerprint” test that may do more than just identify individuals.

Dieter C. Gruenert, PhD, (bottom left) is a professor of otolaryngology—head and neck surgery at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and pediatrics at the University of Vermont (UVM). He has a PhD in biophysics from the University of California at Berkeley and was a postdoctoral fellow in carcinogenesis at L’Institut Suisse de Recherche Expérimentale sur le Cancer in Lausanne. He was co- director of the Gene Therapy Core Center at UCSF, director of the Division of Human Molecular Genetics at UVM, and head of the Stem Cell Research Program at California Pacific Medical Center. His research focuses on development of gene editing and cell-based therapies for inherited diseases and cancer. He has developed novel diagnostic and oligonucleotide-based therapeutic strategies to ameliorate disease pathology.














