-
1 week ago | 
news.mit.edu | Anne Trafton
Researchers from MIT and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have discovered that a class of peptides expressed in pancreatic cancer cells could be a promising target for T-cell therapies and other approaches that attack pancreatic tumors. Known as cryptic peptides, these molecules are produced from sequences in the genome that were not thought to encode proteins.
-
1 week ago | 
news.mit.edu | Anne Trafton
Inside every human cell, 2 meters of DNA is crammed into a nucleus that is only one-hundredth of a millimeter in diameter. To fit inside that tiny space, the genome must fold into a complex structure known as chromatin, made up of DNA and proteins. The structure of that chromatin, in turn, helps to determine which of the genes will be expressed in a given cell. Neurons, skin cells, and immune cells each express different genes depending on which of their genes are accessible to be transcribed.
-
1 week ago | 
news.mit.edu | Anne Trafton
Tuberculosis, the world’s deadliest infectious disease, is estimated to infect around 10 million people each year, and kills more than 1 million annually. Once established in the lungs, the bacteria’s thick cell wall helps it to fight off the host immune system. Much of that cell wall is made from complex sugar molecules known as glycans, but it’s not well-understood how those glycans help to defend the bacteria. One reason for that is that there hasn’t been an easy way to label them inside cells.
-
2 weeks ago | 
news.mit.edu | Anne Trafton
The composition of bacterial populations living on our faces plays a significant role in the development of acne and other skin conditions such as eczema. Two species of bacteria predominate in most people, but how they interact with each other, and how those interactions may contribute to disease, has been difficult to study.
-
2 weeks ago | 
medicalxpress.com | Anne Trafton
Many diseases are caused by a missing or defective copy of a single gene. For decades, scientists have been working on gene therapy treatments that could cure such diseases by delivering a new copy of the missing genes to the affected cells. Despite those efforts, very few gene therapy treatments have been approved by the FDA.
-
3 weeks ago | 
news.mit.edu | Anne Trafton
When chemists design new chemical reactions, one useful piece of information involves the reaction’s transition state — the point of no return from which a reaction must proceed. This information allows chemists to try to produce the right conditions that will allow the desired reaction to occur. However, current methods for predicting the transition state and the path that a chemical reaction will take are complicated and require a huge amount of computational power.
-
4 weeks ago | 
news.mit.edu | Anne Trafton
Cleft lip and cleft palate are among the most common birth defects, occurring in about one in 1,050 births in the United States. These defects, which appear when the tissues that form the lip or the roof of the mouth do not join completely, are believed to be caused by a mix of genetic and environmental factors. In a new study, MIT biologists have discovered how a genetic variant often found in people with these facial malformations leads to the development of cleft lip and cleft palate.
-
4 weeks ago | 
news.mit.edu | Anne Trafton
Many biological molecules exist as “diastereomers” — molecules that have the same chemical structure but different spatial arrangements of their atoms. In some cases, these slight structural differences can lead to significant changes in the molecules’ functions or chemical properties. As one example, the cancer drug doxorubicin can have heart-damaging side effects in a small percentage of patients.
-
4 weeks ago | 
chemicalonline.com | Anne Trafton
By Anne Trafton, MIT News
Many biological molecules exist as “diastereomers” — molecules that have the same chemical structure but different spatial arrangements of their atoms. In some cases, these slight structural differences can lead to significant changes in the molecules’ functions or chemical properties.
As one example, the cancer drug doxorubicin can have heart-damaging side effects in a small percentage of patients.
-
4 weeks ago | 
terradaily.com | Anne Trafton
A visual pathway in the brain may do more than recognize objectsby Anne Trafton | MIT NewsBoston MA (SPX) Apr 16, 2025
When visual information enters the brain, it travels through two pathways that process different aspects of the input. For decades, scientists have hypothesized that one of these pathways, the ventral visual stream, is responsible for recognizing objects, and that it might have been optimized by evolution to do just that.
