Cells | featured news

Genetically altering a patient’s immune cells has, for the first time, produced remissions in adults with a deadly type of acute leukemia. In one patient, all trace of the disease vanished in 8 days.

Researchers say a lack of sleep affects the function of genes related to stress and cell renewal, possibly contributing to poor health. Doctors know that being chronically sleep-deprived can be hazardous to your health.

Rita Levi-Montalcini, a biologist who conducted underground research in defiance of Fascist persecution and went on to win a Nobel Prize for helping unlock the mysteries of the cell, died in Rome at the age of 103.

Twenty years ago, paleontologist Mary Schweitzer made an astonishing discovery. Peering through a microscope at a slice of dinosaur bone, she spotted what looked for all the world like red blood cells. It seemed utterly impossible—organic remains were not supposed to survive the fossilization process—but test after test indicated that the spherical structures were indeed red blood cells from a 67-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex. In the years that followed, she and her colleagues discovered other apparent soft tissues, including what seem to be blood vessels and feather fibers. But controversy accompanied their claims. Skeptics argued that the alleged organic tissues were instead biofilm—slime formed by microbes that invaded the fossilized bone.

Even though women live longer than men, their brains seem to age faster. The reason? Possibly a more stressful life. As people age, some genes become more active while others become less so. In the brain, these changes can be observed through the transcriptome, a set of RNA molecules that indicate the activity of genes within a population of cells.

Scientists have found a master regulator gene needed for the development of M cells, a mysterious type of intestinal cell involved in initiating immune responses.

Scientists have found Earth's oldest fossils in Australia and say their microscopic discovery is convincing evidence that cells and bacteria were able to thrive in an oxygen-free world more than 3.4 billion years ago.

They're ready to sting, and they know where they're going. They're called "nanobees," and they're not insects -- they're tiny particles designed to destroy cancer cells by delivering a synthesized version of toxin called melittin that is found in bees.