Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology Content / Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology Content for ºÙºÙÊÓƵ en For This Beetle, ‘Date Night’ Comes Every Other Day /food/news/beetle-date-night-comes-every-other-day <p><span><span><span>Life on Earth runs on a 24-hour cycle as the planet turns. Animals and plants have built-in circadian clocks that synchronize metabolism and behavior to this daily cycle. But one beetle is out of sync with the rest of nature.</span></span></span></p> January 18, 2024 - 8:00am Andy Fell /food/news/beetle-date-night-comes-every-other-day Immune Cells Drive Sex Reversal in Zebrafish – and Perhaps Fertility Loss in Women /blog/immune-cells-drive-sex-reversal-zebrafish-and-perhaps-fertility-loss-women <p><span><span><span><span><span><span>Female zebrafish (<em>Danio rerio</em>) have an unusual tendency: if their egg cells are damaged, they can turn into males. Bruce Draper, a professor in the ºÙºÙÊÓƵ Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Florence Marlow, a professor at </span></span><span><span>the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai</span></span><span><span>, have discovered that immune cells called macrophages play a key role in this process.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p> December 11, 2023 - 10:01am Andy Fell /blog/immune-cells-drive-sex-reversal-zebrafish-and-perhaps-fertility-loss-women Citrus Greening Bacteria Affects Pest's Sense of Smell /blog/citrus-greening-bacteria-affects-pests-sense-smell <p><span><span><span>A failed field test has led to a major discovery about the Asian citrus psyllid, the insect that spreads the devastating citrus greening disease. According to new research, the bacteria that cause citrus greening can interfere with the insect’s sense of smell, rendering some kinds of insect traps useless. The work is currently available as a <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.09.566442v1">preprint</a>. </span></span></span></p> November 14, 2023 - 12:45pm Andy Fell /blog/citrus-greening-bacteria-affects-pests-sense-smell Using Glowing Fish to Detect Harmful Pesticides /health/news/using-glowing-fish-detect-harmful-pesticides <p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Birth defects related to chromosomal abnormalities often stem from exposure to chemicals early in the mother</span><span>’s life. But determining which chemicals are at fault poses a serious challenge — akin to solving a hit-and-run case, decades after the fact. Two researchers in the ºÙºÙÊÓƵ College of Biological Sciences are developing a method that could identify harmful chemicals far more quickly, with the help of red- and green-glowing zebrafish.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p> August 15, 2023 - 10:00am Andy Fell /health/news/using-glowing-fish-detect-harmful-pesticides Using Hydra to Understand Tissue Regeneration /blog/using-hydra-understand-tissue-regeneration <p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>The Greek hero Heracles fought a monster called the Hydra, which grew two new heads for each one he lopped off. Heracles was lucky he wasn’t fighting something with the regenerative ability of the real <em>Hydra</em>, which can re-grow its entire body from a few hundred cells. This simple water animal is helping scientists explore how some animals can regrow missing body parts. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p> March 06, 2023 - 9:33am Andy Fell /blog/using-hydra-understand-tissue-regeneration Understanding Healthy Function of Tau, Protein Associated with Dementia /news/understanding-healthy-function-tau-protein-associated-dementia Insoluble tangles of tau protein are found in Alzheimers and other dementias. But the tau protein also has a role in healthy brains. A new study shows how tau modifies microtubules, helping to regulate cell functions. August 25, 2022 - 11:23am Andy Fell /news/understanding-healthy-function-tau-protein-associated-dementia Study Provides Live View Into Dance of Chromosomes During Meiosis /blog/study-provides-live-view-dance-chromosomes-during-meiosis <p>In the choreography of meiosis—the process responsible for sex cell division in all eukaryotic life—the pairing of homologous chromosomes (homologs) is essential. Errors in this process can lead to an incorrect number of chromosomes in sex cells, which can result in birth defects and miscarriages. Despite being studied for more than 100 years, mysteries about the process still abound.&nbsp;</p> April 12, 2022 - 2:42pm Andy Fell /blog/study-provides-live-view-dance-chromosomes-during-meiosis New Technology Solves Mystery of Respiration in Tetrahymena /blog/new-technology-solves-mystery-respiration-tetrahymena Tetrahymena, a tiny single celled-organism, turns out to be hiding a surprising secret: it’s doing respiration – using oxygen to generate cellular energy – differently from other organisms such as plants, animals or yeasts. The discovery, published March 31 in Science, highlights the power of new techniques in structural biology and reveals gaps in our knowledge of a major branch of the tree of life. March 31, 2022 - 3:05pm Andy Fell /blog/new-technology-solves-mystery-respiration-tetrahymena Start Here to Make a Protein /news/start-here-make-protein <p>Researchers at the University of California, Davis, and the <a href="https://www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk">MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology</a> in Cambridge, U.K., have solved the structure of the complex formed when mRNA is being scanned to find the starting point for translating RNA into a protein. The discovery, published Sept. 4 in <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6508/1220">Science</a>, provides new understanding of this fundamental process.</p> September 03, 2020 - 4:39pm Andy Fell /news/start-here-make-protein