Virginia Based Alzheimer's Research Brings Hope to Families - Allegheny Mountain Radio alleghenymountainradio.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from alleghenymountainradio.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Teams at UVA and Virginia Tech explore a new theory on the cause of Alzheimer's disease wvtf.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wvtf.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
UVA Touts New Brain Implant That Could Help People With Alzheimer's seniorhousingnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from seniorhousingnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Embedding fibers to undo the tapestry of memory loss in Alzheimer's disease medicalxpress.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from medicalxpress.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The loss of inner ear hair cells causes permanent hearing and balance deficits in humans and other mammals, but nonmammals recover after supporting cells (SCs) divide and replace hair cells. The proliferative capacity of mammalian SCs declines as exceptionally thick circumferential F-actin bands develop at their adherens junctions. We hypothesized that the reinforced junctions were limiting regenerative responses of mammalian SCs by impeding changes in cell shape and epithelial tension. Using micropipette aspiration and atomic force microscopy, we measured mechanical properties of utricles from mice and chickens. Our data show that the epithelial surface of the mouse utricle stiffens significantly during postnatal maturation. This stiffening correlates with and is dependent on the postnatal accumulation of F-actin and the cross-linker Alpha-Actinin-4 at SC-SC junctions. In chicken utricles, where SCs lack junctional reinforcement, the epithelial surface remains compliant. There, SCs undergo oriented cell divisions and their apical surfaces progressively elongate throughout development, consistent with anisotropic intraepithelial tension. In chicken utricles, inhibition of actomyosin contractility led to drastic SC shape change and epithelial buckling, but neither occurred in mouse utricles. These findings suggest that species differences in the capacity for hair cell regeneration may be attributable in part to the differences in the stiffness and contractility of the actin cytoskeletal elements that reinforce adherens junctions and participate in regulation of the cell cycle.
Virginia Tech COVID-19 testing operation demonstrates the power and versatility of academic labs augustafreepress.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from augustafreepress.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Since testing began, the Molecular Diagnostics Lab has analyzed samples from eight health districts across Southwest Virginia and more than 650 businesses, nursing homes, medical and dental offices, construction sites, and schools. This publication in Nature Communications provides an overview of the enormous dedication of the people, including Dr. Finkielstein and her colleagues, and the successful enterprise they have implemented in service of not only Virginia Tech, but also the entire community, said Michael Friedlander, executive director of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute, Virginia Tech s vice president of health sciences and technology, and an author of the paper. The partnership by Virginia Tech faculty, staff, students, and university leadership working closely with our health department leaders to meet the scientific, regulatory, legal, financial, and infrastructural needs to implement this program represents the Virginia Tech spirit of Ut Prosim at its finest.