Articles tagged Fundamental Research
(109 results)

We’re taking time to get to know the members of the GSA’s Early Career Scientist Committees. Join us to learn more about our early career scientist advocates. Anna Moyer Accessibility Subcommittee University of Alabama at Birmingham Research Interest: I don’t remember very much about the birth of my little brother. I remember the way the light…

Chromosome-level assembly of the North American wolverine sets a new standard for the weasel (Mustelidae) family.

Becoming the president of a world-class university isn’t something that typically happens “by accident,” but that’s exactly how Shirley Tilghman describes it. “I did not intend to be a university president,” Tilghman says. “I probably had the steepest learning curve of any university president ever.” In 2000, Tilghman was serving as founding director of the…

Students, postdocs, academic faculty, and industry researchers will all find benefits at the new Industry Sessions at TAGC, to be held April 22–26 2020 in the Washington DC region. When industry scientists and academic labs collaborate, both society and science benefit. That’s one of two big-picture messages Kailene Simon hopes will be conveyed through a…

Guest authors Sanjai Patel and Andreas Prokop explain why school biology lessons are important places to advocate fundamental biomedical research, and they present strategies developed by the Manchester Fly Facility to bring Drosophila research into primary and secondary classrooms. The need for fundamental biology research has perhaps never been greater than today, yet the conditions…

Guest post by Irini Topalidou. This year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine honored the discovery of a major breakthrough in cancer treatment: immunotherapy. At a news conference after the announcement, one of the recipients, James P. Allison, stated: “The reason I’m really thrilled about this is I’m a basic scientist.” And he continued: “I…

A new genome assembly for Antarctic fur seals sheds light on their historic comeback after 19th century hunting. In the late 19th century, the Antarctic fur seal was thought to be effectively extinct. After over a century of overexploitation driven by demand for the seal’s prized pelt, populations at known breeding grounds seemed to have…

Sexual reproduction is scarce in skin infection culprit. While some people love to feel the burn during a workout, we generally seek that sensation in our muscles—not our feet. Treading barefoot in damp, communal environments like gym showers and the perimeters of pools can expose us to the fungus Trichophyton rubrum, the most common cause…

A suppressor screen in C. elegans uncovers previously unknown flexibility in the genetics underlying extracellular membranes. In nearly all animal tissues, thin barriers called basement membranes anchor outward-facing layers of cells—the linings of lungs, the top layers of skin, the insides of blood vessels—to the connective tissues that support them. Mutations disrupting any major basement…

New evidence for genome instability in fly tumors suggests key similarities—and differences—from human disease processes. Human cancers display a variety of abnormal genomic features, including increased numbers of single nucleotide variants (SNVs) and copy number variants (CNVs). However, a 2014 study on a fruit fly tumor detected no elevation of SNVs or CNVs compared to non-tumor…

A new fruit fly model of Leigh syndrome reveals the importance of mtDNA variation. Inherited mitochondrial disorders pose a perplexing problem to researchers and clinicians: people with the same condition can have vastly different clinical manifestations, even if they share the same mutation. For example, a neurodegenerative disorder called Leigh syndrome, which can be caused…