california institute of technology

(California Institute of Technology) A team of researchers at the California Institute of Technology has devised a new method for making complex molecules.

The reaction they have come up with should enable chemists to synthesize new varieties of a whole subclass of organic compounds called nitrogen-containing heterocycles, thus opening up new avenues for the development of novel pharmaceuticals and natural products ranging from chemotherapeutic compounds to bioactive plant materials such as morphine.

(University of Louisville) A team of scientists at the University of Louisville, UCLA and the California Institute of Technology has achieved a significant breakthrough in its initial work with a paralyzed male volunteer at Louisville's Frazier Rehab Institute.

It is the result of 30 years of research to find potential clinical therapies for paralysis. The study is published today (May 19) in the British medical journal The Lancet.

(California Institute of Technology) A Caltech-led team of researchers and clinicians has published the first proof that a targeted nanoparticle -- used as an experimental therapeutic and injected directly into a patient's bloodstream -- can traffic into tumors, deliver double-stranded small interfering RNAs, and turn off an important cancer gene using a mechanism known as RNA interference.

Moreover, the team provided the first demonstration that this new type of therapy can make its way to human tumors in a dose-dependent fashion.

(California Institute of Technology) For decades, science texts have told a simple and straightforward story about a transcription factor that helps the embryo of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, pattern tissues in a manner that depends on the levels of this factor within individual cells.

Now a team of Caltech biologists has called that paradigm into question, revealing a tale that is both more complicated and potentially more interesting than the one previously described.

(California Institute of Technology) The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has selected two researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) to participate in its Young Faculty Award (YFA) program.Julia R.

Greer, assistant professor of materials science, and Doris Tsao, assistant professor of biology, are among the 33 "rising stars" from 24 US universities who each will receive grants of approximately $300,000 to develop and validate their research ideas over the next 24 months.

(California Institute of Technology) The cells in our body are constantly receiving mixed messages. An epithelial cell might be exposed to one signal telling it to divide and, simultaneously, another telling it to stop dividing.

The tug-of-war between these two sets of influences, and the effects they have on tissue growth, are explained and explored in a paper authored by scientists from Caltech and published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.