Tag Archives: burnham

Researchers discover key to making new muscles

There are two important processes that need to happen to maintain skeletal-muscle health. First, when muscle is damaged by injury or degenerative disease such as muscular dystrophy, muscle stem cells — or satellite cells — need to differentiate into mature muscle cells to repair injured muscles. Second, the pool of satellite cells needs to be replenished so there is a supply to repair muscle in case of future injuries. In the case of muscular dystrophy, the chronic cycles of muscle regeneration and degeneration that involve satellite-cell activation exhaust the muscle stem-cell pool to the point of no return. …

New way to generate insulin-producing cells in type 1 diabetes

“We have found a promising technique for type 1 diabetics to restore the body’s ability to produce insulin. By introducing caerulein to the pancreas we were able to generate new beta cells — the cells that produce insulin — potentially freeing patients from daily doses of insulin to manage their blood-sugar levels.” said Fred Levine, M.D., Ph.D., professor and director of the Sanford Children’s Health Research Center at Sanford-Burnham. The study first examined how mice in which almost all beta cells were destroyed — similar to humans with type 1 diabetes — responded to injections of caerulein. …

How tumors remodel their surroundings to grow: New study provides insight — ScienceDaily

The findings, published July 3 in Cancer Cell, contribute to the increasing acknowledgement that the cells and tissue surrounding a tumor — the stroma — are an integral part of cancer initiation, growth, and expansion. “Our study reveals a precise mechanism that stromal cells use to encourage the tumorigenesis of epithelial cancer cells,” said Jorge Moscat, Ph.D., director of the Cell Death and Survival Networks Program at Sanford-Burnham. “We have shown that in the stroma, p62 acts as an anti-inflammatory tumor suppressor, controlling the inflammatory environment and the signals that promote cancer…

Potent compound kills prostate cancer cells

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related death among men in the United States. One treatment option for these patients is castration — the chemical or surgical removal of the testes — which reduces the production of the male sex hormone testosterone…

Novel nanoparticle delivers powerful RNA interference drugs

In a new paper appearing today online in the journal, ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters, researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute have developed nanoparticles that appear to solve a big challenge in delivering the RNA molecules, called small interfering RNA, or siRNA, to the cells where they are needed. By synthesizing a nanoparticle that releases its siRNA cargo only after it enters targeted cells, Dr…