Two genes act as molecular midwives to the birth of neurons in adult mammals and when inactivated in mice cause symptoms of Fragile X Syndrome, a major cause of mental retardation, a new Yale University study has shown.

In humans as well as mice, most neurons are created prior to birth and few new brain cells are produced as adults. The new study identified two genes that are crucial to creation of neurons in the brain region responsible for learning and memory. When the two Pumilio genes PUM1 and PUM2 are knocked out in mice, few neural stem cells are created in this region, which becomes very small. The mice can no longer navigate mazes and exhibit the same pathology as humans with Fragile X Syndrome.

The genes control whether RNA that has already been transcribed actually go on to create proteins, a little studied step of gene regulation with major biological implications, said senior author Haifan Lin, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Cell Biology, and professor of genetics and of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences as well as director of the Yale Stem Cell Center.

Meng Zhang, a graduate student in the Lin lab, was lead author of the study published Aug. 15 in the journal Genes & Development.

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Two genes help older brain gain new cells - Yale News

Some people are better than others at recovering from a wounded heart, according to a new USC Stem Cell study published in Nature Genetics.

In the study, first author Michaela Patterson, a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Henry Sucov, and her colleagues focused on a regenerative type of heart muscle cell called a mononuclear diploid cardiomyocyte (MNDCM). Zebrafish and newborn mammals, including mice and humans, have large numbers of MNDCMs and a relatively robust ability to regenerate heart muscle. However, adult mammals have few MNDCMs and a correspondingly limited capacity for regeneration after an injury such as a heart attack.

Even so, the situation for adult mammals is not uniformly dire: Patterson and her co-authors observed a surprising amount variation in the number of MNDCMs among different strains of adult mice. In some strains, MNDCMs accounted for only 1.9 percent of heart muscle cells. In others, a full 10 percent were MNDCMs. As expected, the higher the percentage of MNDCMs, the better the mice fared in regenerating their heart muscle after injury.

This was an exciting finding, said Patterson. It suggests that not all individuals are destined to permanent heart muscle loss after a heart attack, but rather some can naturally recover both heart muscle mass and function. If we can identify the genes that make some individuals better at it than others, then perhaps we can stimulate regeneration across the board.

Using an approach called a genome-wide association study, the researchers indeed identified one of the key genes underlying this variation: Tnni3k. By blocking this gene in mice, the researchers produced higher percentages of MNDCMs and enhanced heart regeneration. In contrast, activating this gene in zebrafish decreased MNDCMs and impaired heart regeneration.

Sucovsenior author and professor of stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, integrative anatomical sciences, and biochemistry and molecular biologydescribed how this early discovery could be a first step towards a preventive strategy to mitigate heart disease, the leading cause of death in the Western world.

The activity of this gene, Tnni3k, can be modulated by small molecules, which could be developed into prescription drugs in the future, he said. These small molecules could change the composition of the heart over time to contain more of these regenerative cells. This could improve the potential for regeneration in adult hearts, as a preventative strategy for those who may be at risk for heart failure.

This article has been republished frommaterialsprovided by the University of Southern California. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

Reference:

Patterson, M., Barske, L., Handel, B. V., Rau, C. D., Gan, P., Sharma, A., . . . Sucov, H. M. (2017). Frequency of mononuclear diploid cardiomyocytes underlies natural variation in heart regeneration. Nature Genetics. doi:10.1038/ng.3929

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Gene Involved in Natural Variation in Heart Regeneration Identified - Technology Networks

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Cell Biology - ThoughtCo

When it comes to biomolecules, RNA doesnt get a lot of love.

Maybe you havent even heard of the silent workhorse. RNA is the cells de facto translator: like a game of telephone, RNA takes DNAs genetic code to a cellular factory called ribosomes. There, the cell makes proteins based on RNAs message.

But RNA isnt just a middleman. It controls what proteins are formed. Because proteins wiz around the cell completing all sorts of important processes, you can say that RNA is the gatekeeper: no RNA message, no proteins, no life.

In a new study published in Nature, RNA finally took center stage. By adding bits of genetic material to the E. Coli bacteria, a team of biohackers at the Wyss Institute hijacked the organisms RNA messengers so that they only spring into action following certain inputs.

The result? A bacterial biocomputer capable of performing 12-input logic operationsAND, OR, and NOTfollowing specific inputs. Rather than outputting 0s and 1s, these biocircuits produce results based on the presence or absence of proteins and other molecules.

Its the greatest number of inputs in a circuit that a cell has been able to process, says study author Dr. Alexander Green at Arizona State University. To be able to analyze those signals andmake a decision is the big advance here.

When given a specific set of inputs, the bacteria spit out a protein that made them glow neon green under fluorescent light.

But synthetic biology promises far more than just a party trickby tinkering with a cells RNA repertoire, scientists may one day coax them to photosynthesize, produce expensive drugs on the fly, or diagnose and hunt down rogue tumor cells.

This isnt the first time that scientists hijacked lifes algorithms to reprogram cells into nanocomputing systems. Previous work has already introduced to the world yeast cells that can make anti-malaria drugs from sugar or mammalian cells that can perform Boolean logic.

Yet circuits with multiple inputs and outputs remain hard to program. The reason is this: synthetic biologists have traditionally focused on snipping, fusing, or otherwise arranging a cells DNA to produce the outcomes they want.

But DNA is two steps removed from proteins, and tinkering with lifes code often leads to unexpected consequences. For one, the cell may not even accept and produce the extra bits of DNA code. For another, the added code, when transformed into proteins, may not act accordingly in the crowded and ever-changing environment of the cell.

Whats more, tinkering with one gene is often not enough to program an entirely new circuit. Scientists often need to amp up or shut down the activity of multiple genes, or multiple biological modules each made up of tens or hundreds of genes.

Its like trying to fit new Lego pieces in a specific order into a room full of Lego constructions. Each new piece has the potential to wander off track and click onto something its not supposed to touch.

Getting every moving component to work in syncas you might have guessedis a giant headache.

With ribocomputing, Green and colleagues set off to tackle a main problem in synthetic biology: predictability.

Named after the R (ribo) in RNA, the method grew out of an idea that first struck Green back in 2012.

The synthetic biological circuits to date have relied heavily on protein-based regulators that are difficult to scale up, Green wrote at the time. We only have a limited handful of designable parts that work well, and these circuits require significant resources to encode and operate, he explains.

RNA, in comparison, is a lot more predictable. Like its more famous sibling DNA, RNA is composed of units that come in four different flavors: A, G, C, and U. Although RNA is only single-stranded, rather than the double helix for which DNA is known for, it can bind short DNA-like sequences in a very predictable manner: Gs always match up with Cs and As always with Us.

Because of this predictability, its possible to design RNA components that bind together perfectly. In other words, it reduces the chance that added RNA bits might go rogue in an unsuspecting cell.

Normally, once RNA is produced it immediately rushes to the ribosomethe cells protein-building factory. Think of it as a constantly on system.

However, Green and his team found a clever mechanism to slow them down. Dubbed the toehold switch, it works like this: the artificial RNA component is first incorporated into a chain of A, G, C, and U folded into a paperclip-like structure.

This blocks the RNA from accessing the ribosome. Because one RNA strand generally maps to one protein, the switch prevents that protein from ever getting made.

In this way, the switch is set to off by defaulta NOT gate, in Boolean logic.

To activate the switch, the cell needs another component: a trigger RNA, which binds to the RNA toehold switch. This flips it on: the RNA grabs onto the ribosome, and bamproteins.

String a few RNA switches together, with the activity of each one relying on the one before, and it forms an AND gate. Alternatively, if the activity of each switch is independent, thats an OR gate.

Basically, the toehold switches performed so well that we wanted to find a way to best exploit them for cellular applications, says Green. Theyre kind of the equivalent of your first transistors, he adds.

Once the team optimized the designs for different logic gates, they carefully condensed the switches into gate RNA molecules. These gate RNAs contain both codes for proteins and the logic operations needed to kickstart the processa molecular logic circuit, so to speak.

If youve ever played around with an Arduino-controlled electrical circuit, you probably know the easiest way to test its function is with a light bulb.

Thats what the team did here, though with a biological bulb: green fluorescent protein, a light-sensing protein not normally present in bacteria thatwhen turned onmakes the microbugs glow neon green.

In a series of experiments, Green and his team genetically inserted gate RNAs into bacteria. Then, depending on the type of logical function, they added different combinations of trigger RNAsthe inputs.

When the input RNA matched up with its corresponding gate RNA, it flipped on the switch, causing the cell to light up.

Their most complex circuit contained five AND gates, five OR gates, and two NOTsa 12-input ribocomputer that functioned exactly as designed.

Thats quite the achievement. Everything is interacting with everything else and there are a million ways those interactions could flip the switch on accident, says RNA researcher Dr. Julies Lucks at Northwestern University.

The specificity is thanks to RNA, the authors explain. Because RNAs bind to others so predictably, we can now design massive libraries of gate and trigger units to mix-and-match into all types of nano-biocomputers.

Although the technology doesnt have any immediate applications, the team has high hopes.

For the first time, its now possible to massively scale up the process of programming new circuits into living cells. Weve expanded the library of available biocomponents that can be used to reprogram lifes basic code, the authors say.

Whats more, when freeze-dried onto a piece of tissue paper, RNA keeps very well. We could potentially print RNA toehold switches onto paper that respond to viruses or to tumor cells, the authors say, essentially transforming the technology into highly accurate diagnostic platforms.

But Greens hopes are even wilder for his RNA-based circuits.

Because were using RNA, a universal molecule of life, we know these interactions can also work in other cells, so our method provides a general strategy that could be ported to other organisms, he says.

Ultimately, the hope is to program neural network-like capabilities into the bodys other cells.

Imagine cells endowed with circuits capable of performing the kinds of computation the brain does, the authors say.

Perhaps one day, synthetic biology will transform our own cells into fully programmable entities, turning us all into biological cyborgs from the inside. How wild would that be?

Image Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University

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Biocomputers Made From Cells Can Now Handle More Complex Logic - Singularity Hub

Cells are the structural and functional unit of life thats middle school biology, learnt and forgotten. For many, however, cells continue to be a positively fascinating subject despite everything that is known about it. The fascination stems from the fact that cells are like factories, each with numerous machines called organelles working in synchrony to function as one whole unit. The coordination amongst these organelles, necessary to facilitate cellular function, is a topic of research pursued by many.

One among the many is Prof. Mukund Thattai, who is applying his knowledge of physics to cell biology. After moving to the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), he set up a synthetic biology lab to build genetic circuits in bacteria. Around 2010, I started looking for a new problem to work on, which could bring together my physics side with a problem that always interested me evolution. In a workshop in 2010, we called together some of the best cell biologists and evolutionary biologists to ask whether we could retrace the origins of eukaryotes. Ever since then Ive been doing evolutionary cell biology, he quips. It was along this course that he began following the studies of a few of his colleagues, who were studying various elements of endosome function.

What are endosomes and how do they work?

Endosomes are tiny parcels, containing anything ranging from microbes to food molecules that cells ingest. Lets say a cell comes across a virus; it engulfs the virus by forming a pocket around it. The pocket closes, and the virus is trapped inside a bag (made of the cells membrane) within the cell. This bag, called the endosome, is now transported deep inside the cell for degradation.

Now, at the same time, the cell also produces tiny sacs of enzymes proteins that can shred biomolecules into otiose bits. At some point, the endosome, with the virus, fuses with the bag of enzymes, forming what is known as a lysosome. Following the fusion, the enzymes called hydrolases begin to destroy the virus or whatever else the endosome may have contained, and we escape from the consequences that the virus could have induced. The endocytic system in the cell exists to break down such complex structures into simple molecules that the cell can reuse.

This recycling system, present only in eukaryotes (the more evolved organisms), is absent in prokaryotes like bacteria, which lack cell organelles and a membrane-bound nucleus. So, eukaryotes, including humans, take stuff inside the cell for digestion and molecular break down happens within the lysosomes. But in bacterial cells, digestion occurs outside the cells. Bacteria break down complex molecules by spitting enzymes outside the cell and then consuming the digested bits. In fact, many times when food in our pantry goes bad, it is because of bacterial enzymes that have broken down the food into simple molecules, so that the bacteria can consume it.

Another interesting aspect of lysosomes is the cocktail of enzymes in them. These enzymes are called hydrolases, and lysosomes contain more than 50 different kinds of them each to break down specific types of biomolecules like carbohydrates, proteins, fats, etc. So how is it that these enzymes, which reside within the lysosomes in our cells, do not break down the cell itself? The answer lies in a little mechanism called acidification.

Lysosomal enzymes work only in acidic conditions. Endosomes, containing matter to be digested, have pumps on their membrane that sucks protons (or positively charged hydrogen ions), from its outside to its inside. The H+ ions make the endosomes acidic. When the endosome fuses with the vesicle containing the lysosomal enzymes, the enzymes are activated, and then they get to work. In fact, the purpose of acidic pH in endosomes has always been credited to its role in activating lysosomal enzymes.

In his new study, however, Prof. Thattai has a whole new rationale for the acidic pH found in endosomes. He proposes that lysosome acidification must have evolved as a leak detection system, a theory that brings in a paradigm shift to the current understanding of lysosomal biology. This study was recently published in the journal BMC Biology.

The leak detection theory

Prof. Thattai argues that lysosomal enzymes are costly for a cell to produce. And having made it, the cell would ensure not to waste it. To do so, the cell would need to ascertain that the endosomes that formed by the fusion of the cell membrane are completely sealed. Else, the expensive enzyme would leak out into the cell during fusion. But, how can a cell detect leakage? To answer this, Prof. Thattai puts forth the leak detection dye theory.

Many real-world engineers approach the issue of leak detection with a simple solution a dye is continuously pumped into the structure that is suspected of leaking. The dye will leak outside the structure, as long as there is no seal; once it is completely sealed the dye will accumulate a sign that the structure is leak-proof. Prof. Thattai explains, My line of thought was not why the endosomes are acidic, but rather, how to detect leaks, like an engineer. I knew there must be a leak-detection dye. The proton [H+] seemed like a good choice it is inexpensive for the cell to produce, abundant, rapidly diffusing, and easily sensed. To me, acidification is a by-product.

Prof. Thattai says that he has spoken to many cell biologists about this idea and that although they find it to be an interesting thought, nobody has so far has ever considered this leak-detection hypothesis. The issue is that there are so many obvious things acidic pH can do, that nobody felt there was anything further that even required explanation. I am not saying that all those processes dont make use of pH. Im saying that organelle acidification first arose for leak detection, he explains of his hypothesis.

Prof. Thattais theory is an exciting one, especially when you consider the evolution of eukaryotes from prokaryotes. Prokaryotes do not have lysosomes, but eukaryotes do. If the theory is true, then the evolution of a leak detection system in eukaryotic cells is a very intriguing concept. Prof. Thattai points out that we dont have much information about how this evolutionary jump from prokaryotes to eukaryotes occurred 2.5 billion years ago. Any hints about that process would be valuable. Finding something that functions as a leak detector adds a fresh angle to that story, he adds.

The leak detection theory holds good for most of our cells. But, what about eukaryotic cells that grow in acidic conditions? Their endosomes would already be acidic. This is something I have thought of, says Prof. Thattai. Incidentally, according to my hypothesis both acidic (H+) and alkaline (OH-) ions would work equally well theyre equally abundant and move nearly as rapidly. So maybe somewhere on earth, theres a cell that makes its organelles alkaline to test for leaks. That would be very cool.

The theory, of course, is a new perspective that has not occurred to many biologists. It is sometimes useful to ask why questions in biology. Its not always possible to answer them, but it does allow you to discover unexpected connections sometimes, he signs off.

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Cells may be using protons to detect leaks, says study - Research Matters

SLIPPERY ROCK The United States, as the worlds largest producer of soybeans, has nearly 90 million acres devoted to the crop, according to the most recent outlook published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The most interesting soybeans however, could very well sprout up in a greenhouse at Slippery Rock Universitys Vincent Science Center.

Emily Reed, a junior biology major from Volant, received a $725 Summer Undergraduate Research Experience grant this summer to study the cell functions in soybeans. Under the guidance of Nicole Dafoe, assistant professor and chair of the biology department, Reed is observing endoreduplication in soybean plants. Endoreduplication is a cell cycle in which a cells DNA is replicated, but the cell does not divide.

This process occurs in all organisms because of a specific gene called ccs52, or Cell Cycle Switch 52. All organisms have one of these genes, with plants having two or three, but soybeans are different.

We started looking into soybeans and it turns out they have six of them, which is huge, said Dafoe, who made the discovery two years ago. Research has been done with other organisms but theres not a ton out there on what we are doing. Nothing has been done in soybean. This is all very new.

Reed and Defoe may want endoreduplication to occur so they can learn from it, but what about farmers and, ultimately, consumers?

Theres both good and bad to it, Dafoe said. Endoreduplication in plants has been associated with crop production and its important for drought tolerance. While there are a lot of really good things that its associated with, the downside is its association with pest and pathogen growth because of the nutrients on which they are able to feed.

Part of the research is testing different compositions of the gene, based on amino acid sequences, and how they contribute to endorepuplication.

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Thats the exciting thing about endoreduplication it occurs in lots of different phases, said Dafoe, who prior to coming to SRU five years ago was a research molecular biologist at the USDA. It occurs during fruit development, it occurs in response to drought, it can occur in response to a pest feeding on it.

In soybeans, endoreduplication occurs when a swelling of cells, or nodules, are formed in response to the presence of nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

Thats where Reed comes in. She is testing the effects of the ccs52 gene in yeast, as a model, as well as planted soybean to determine what is necessary to develop the nodules. The soybean plants are treated with bacteria when they are planted and some are grown in the absence of nitrogen.

Reed has spent two to three days per week in the lab this summer, experience she says will be important not only for discovery but to build her resume for future research opportunities and entrance into a doctorate program.

I was extremely excited to get this research grant because I learned that I really have a passion for research and this is making it so that Im able to come in every week and do more and learn more, said Reed. The aspiring professor is already eyeing doctorate programs in molecular or cellular biology that will allow her to bypass a masters degree because of her undergraduate research.

Reed and Dafoe said their efforts this summer will help scientists better understand the causes of endoreduplication. They plan to publish the findings in a peer-reviewed journal or present at conferences next spring.

Its been a lot of practice and learning to do things that I didnt even know were possible before, said Reed, referring to scientific functions like DNA replication and measuring protein expression in organisms.

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Volant resident conducting new soybean plant research at SRU - New Castle News

New Mexico State University ranks first in the country for federal obligations for science and engineering activities for minority-serving institutions according to a report from the National Science Foundations National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.

A high-Hispanic enrollment institution, NMSU led the nation in receiving $48.8 million in federal science and engineering obligations during the 2015 fiscal year. The majority of the funds, 84 percent, were in the research and development category, and 62 percent of the science and engineering total came from the Department of Defense ($11.6 million), NSF ($9.6 million) and NASA ($9 million).

Other institutions listed with NMSU in the top 20 include UTEP, University of Texas at San Antonio, Florida A&M and Florida International.

This is just another indication of NMSUs excellence in science and engineering, said NMSU Chancellor Garrey Carruthers. Its appropriate that this recognition comes to a Hispanic-Serving Institution already known for excellence in the STEM fields.

Chelsea Garno, a biology graduate student, is conducting NSF-funded research to describe how a cell divides from one to two cells because shortly after the phenomenon was discovered and described in the 1970s, there were no further studies into the contractile ring, until recently.

The contractile ring is a transient actomyosin structure that forms in the middle of a cell that is highly regulated temporally and spatially. I am working with several proteins, namely Anillin, Septin, Myosin and Actin, to determine the roles of each of these proteins during the first cell division after fertilization in sea urchin eggs, said Garno, who plans to attend medical school after earning her masters degree.

Garno encourages students to find research opportunities.

My advice to any students who are aspiring to do research, regardless of the field, is to reach out to your professors about any research opportunities they are aware of in their field. If they do not have a research lab on campus, they may know someone who does and can get you connected to a research lab that interests you, Garno said.

Initially introduced to NMSU by a friend who is a graduate, Clara Ross said she choose NMSU for graduate school to study cellular biology, which incorporated her interest in both molecular biology and biochemistry.

I found NMSU to have knowledgeable and diverse faculty members as well as a wide spread of research interests, she said. I have had great experiences working with the undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty. They are open and helpful allowing me to be productive and learn every day.

To view the entire report, click here.

Author:Tiffany Acosta NMSU

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NMSU ranks No. 1 in Nation in Science, Engineering Funding for Minority-Serving Institutions - El Paso Herald-Post (press release) (registration)...

CORCORAN The students and staff of John Muir Middle School have been selected to be part of the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) Mission 12 to the International Space Station.

The school will be joining approximately two dozen other schools from Canada and the United States to be part of Mission 12 with their space experiment going on the spacecraft.

I am so excited to bring this to our kids, said Principal Dave Whitmore. It is an unbelievable opportunity. How many people get the chance to design an experiment that goes into space?

Dr. Jeff Goldstein, Director of National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, says that the program inspires critical thinking and problem solving. Students experiments take place on earth and in space in order to compare gravity versus non-gravity results.

By giving the students an actual context to apply what they are learning, we believe that the students may start to make connections that we have not been able to get them to make without an actual context in the past, stated John Muir staff in the application. Participation in the SSEP would allow our students to practice higher order thinking skills while using and practicing the scientific method. While in teams, students will design a formal plan using higher order thinking skills, research skills and then write it up using technical writing skills.

The entire John Muir staff and all students will be participating. First up will be getting students excited about space and real-life expectations through a schoolwide contest to design the mission patch with the winner picked out by a panel.

Science teachers will begin the year with a focus on understanding and using the scientific method, as well as the importance of technical writing.

Lessons will then expand to address the physics, challenges and applications of microgravity, as well as analysis and practice with more specific technical writing. Agriculture scientists from throughout the area, as well as the Kings County Office of Education, will be solicited to help. The $24,000 cost of the project will be paid for by Title 1 funds.

This is a huge honor and opportunity for our middle school students and community, said Superintendent Rich Merlo. The school is among less than 30 communities in North America to be involved in real experiments in real space flight. Congratulations to our leadership and faculty for being selected to create such a powerful, real life, exciting learning environment for Corcoran students.

The program is open to schools and school districts serving grades 5-12, as well as two- and four-year colleges and universities, informal science education organizations and internationally through the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education and the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education.

Student teams are able to design experiments across fields, including: seed germination, crystal growth, physiology and life cycles of microorganisms, cell biology and growth, food studies and studies of micro-aquatic life. Experiments require design to the technology and engineering constraints imposed by the mini-laboratory and flight operations to and from low Earth orbit.

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Corcoran's John Muir Middle School is joining the space program - Hanford Sentinel

A global education facility, The University of Nottingham has campuses in Malaysia, China and the United Kingdom. A depth of expertise in the fields of Zoology, Anatomy, Physiology, Pharmacology, Microbiology, Genetics, Biochemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology can be found in the School of Life Sciences within the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.

This wide range of expertise places the University of Nottingham at the forefront of Medical Science and Biological research. One particular project is involved in molecular genetic studies of spider silk and extensive knowledge of this topic has relevance in many fields from pure education to future engineering applications.

Working with colleagues across the University, including the Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Centre, the Spider Lab team had to test the physical properties of specific types of this natural protein.

However, the fiber test specimens are usually only a few tens of microns in width, even though the raw materials are generated by some of the largest members of the infra order for instance the Mexican red knee tarantula (Brachypelma smithi). Hence, in addition to the highest levels of accuracy, the solution demanded delicate yet secure gripping for valid research data.

Mexican Red Knee Tarantula with Silk Sample and Holder.

Lightweight Grips, Spring-loaded and Rubber-faced.

A computer-controlled test stand was delivered by Mecmesin, with an appropriately rated load cell and fixtures, selected to optimize resolution at the maximum expected tensile forces.

The test procedure is controlled by the emperor software

and the programming environment enables specific calculations to be carried out to systematically characterize the performance of the silk sample. Measurement of extension rate, average load over specific extension ranges, work performed, elongation and load at break are recorded.

Thus, this broad analysis provides a better understanding about the variability amongst silks (and between strands of the same silk type). The library files make sure that the same extension test is repeated several times for the same fiber, or bundles of fibers which replicates the natural ecological use of the material.

By bonding the fiber or fibers to a card frame, which is cut in two before the test, the test sample is secured. The precision specification is completed by lightweight grips - spring-loaded clamping for the upper and rubber-faced jaws in the lower.

The Mecmesin machine is a great piece of kit it has allowed us to move forward with our research in a very productive way, and we are grateful for the excellent technical support that has come with it.

Dr. Sara Goodacre, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences, The University of Nottingham

This information has been sourced, reviewed and adapted from materials provided by Mecmesin Limited.

For more information on this source, please visit Mecmesin Limited.

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Testing the Strength and Durability of Spider Silk - AZoM

Figure: Image from an electron micrograph through a single section plane illustrating spiny dendrites (yellow), nonspiny dendrites (orange), excitatory axons (green), excitatory synapses (red), astroglia (light blue), microglia (dark brown). Kristen Harris

AUSTIN, Texas The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Kristen Harris, a professor in the Department of Neuroscience at The University of Texas at Austin, a $9 million grant to explore the brain in microscopic detail and understand the cell biology of the nervous system. Harris plans to image and map synapses, the tiny points of contact between neurons throughout the brain, in detail and to model synapse function and share the data publically for use by colleagues throughout the world.

Harris says that the funding from NSFs Next Generation Networks for Neuroscience (NeuroNex) program allows her to expand her expertise through collaborations with James Carson of the Texas Advanced Computing Center and Terrence Sejnowski of the Salk Institute.

Ive been working to understand synapse structure and function for my whole academic life. We have created accurate three-dimensional reconstructions of all the synapses and their associated structures (dendrites, axons and glia) using sophisticated electron microscopy. We discovered, for example, that in brain volumes as tiny as a single red blood cell, there are more than 500 synapses, says Harris. With this grant, we will collect new images more quickly from a variety of brain regions and taxa from mice to humans and share them more easily with the scientific community.

Part of the funding is to design a new electron microscope capable of imaging at a greater volume while simultaneously peeking inside the tiniest substructure of individual synapses using a new tomographic approach. As the images are collected, they will be shared with collaborators at the Salk Institute to expand existing and build new computational modeling tools for understanding how synapse ultrastructure supports brain function.

Our team at the Salk Institute will build a computational microscopeto animate the electron microscope data from the NeuroNex projectand probe the function of synapses at the molecular level, says Sejnowski, laboratory head of Salks Computational Neurobiology Laboratory and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.

The images and tools will be shared with the scientific community through a portal being developed at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC).

Electron microscopy is a powerful tool for understanding the tiny details of the brain that are critical to how advanced organisms learn and remember, said Carson, a co-primary investigator with Harris and Research Associate in Life Sciences Computing at TACC. Yetthe amount of data collected is not currentlylimited by the microscope itself, but insteadthe ability to process the data and interpret it. By leveraging TACC'shigh-performance computing, we intend to greatly speed up the rate of knowledge discovery in this field. By creating a public portal for other researchers, we provide the foundation for collaboration and sharing of data and analysis methods, thusfurther accelerating our ability to learn about how our brains work.

Students in an undergraduate course Harris is teaching on synapses will help to test the new modeling and reconstruction tools as well as produce some of the data that will be shared in the portal. The educational element also features workshops that will help bring top neuroscience students to UT Austin.

The award to Harris is part of a major public-private joint endeavor, the Brain Initiative, which is pursuing one of sciences grandest challenges: understanding the brain. The NSF states that the overall goal of the NeuroNex program within the Brian Initiative is to establish a coherent national infrastructure to enhance understanding of brain function across organizational levels and a diversity of species. The initiative focuses on interdisciplinary approaches and new technologies, with the promise of ushering in new ways of conducting neuroscience research.

Through the development of advanced instrumentation to observe and model the brain, were closer to our goal of building a more complete knowledge base about how neural activity produces behavior, says Jim Olds, the NSFs assistant director for biological sciences. NeuroNex seeks to take that progress forward by creating an ecosystem of new tools, resources and theories. Most importantly, NeuroNex aims to ensure their broad dissemination to the neuroscience community. With these awards, NSF is building a foundation for the next generation of research into the brain.

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Neuroscientist Receives Grant to Advance Understanding of Brain Structure - UT News | The University of Texas at Austin