A collaborative team of UC Davis and University of Oxford researchers have developed an innovative new software tool \u2013 SparkMaster 2 \u2013 which will enable automatic analysis of calcium sparks which are known to cause cardiac arrythmias in a variety of disease settings. First and co-corresponding author Dr Jakub Tomek, who is a Sir Henry Wellcome Fellow based in DPAG's Zaccolo group, conducted this research as part of his fellowship year spent at UC Davis.
Mental health is not written in the stars \u2013 but some conditions can be determined even before birth and the origins of some vulnerabilities may lie in the first few months of life, says Professor Zolt\u00e1n Moln\u00e1r. Part of the University of Oxford's 'Brain and mental health' campaign.
New research led by Dr Johanna Michl and Professor Pawel Swietach has solved the longstanding mystery of how cancer cells are able to maintain a relatively alkaline intracellular pH, despite being surrounded by an acidic environment. A raised intracellular pH is required for cancer progression because it allows cancer cells to efficiently proliferate and metastasise. However, until now the exact molecular mechanism underlying this adaptation was unknown.
Congratulations are in order for Associate Professor Lisa Heather, who has been awarded an extension of her British Heart Foundation Intermediate Basic Science Research Fellowship. The extension recognises her successful research on the impact of abnormal metabolism in diabetes on the heart and will prepare her for progression to a Senior Fellowship.
Congratulations are in order to Dr Jose Prius Mengual who has been awarded an Emerging Leader Fellowship Award from Epilepsy Research UK and the Nucleic Acid Therapy Accelerator (NATA). With this award, Dr Mengual will develop a new genetic therapy to rebalance protein levels in the neurons affected by epilepsy to prevent seizures.
Congratulations are in order to Dr Hugo Fernandes who has been awarded a sought after Alzheimer\u2019s Society Dementia Research Leader Fellowship. With this award, Dr Fernandes will reveal the role of dysfunctional lipid metabolism in dementia using innovative self-designed tools and models to identify new therapeutic targets.
New research published in Nature, led by researchers Dr Zeynep Okray, Dr Pedro Jacob and Professor Scott Waddell at the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour, has discovered a detailed neural circuit mechanism that explains how multisensory learning improves memory performance.
Professor Ana Domingos and DPhil student Conan O\u2019Brien review a new study demonstrating that fasting and re-feeding causes monocytes to re-enter the bone marrow and alter the body's response to infection.
A collaborative team of researchers in DPAG and Pharmacology led by Dr Lukas Krone have uncovered striking new data demonstrating that two widely used designer drugs used to turn populations of neurons on and off in the brain cause unexpected effects on sleep. These results demonstrate a critical need to improve chemogenetic approaches in behavioural studies.
A new Zaccolo group study has revealed key new insights into the role of cAMP signalling in both healthy and disease settings within the heart. They have identified new cAMP nanodomains in cardiac muscle cells that have far reaching implications for the treatment of heart disease.
Collaborative work from DPAG and Oncology researchers has revealed a potential new pathway to block the production of a specific group of exosomes made in the cell\u2019s recycling system that can promote the growth of cancerous tumours.
Researchers from the Herring group have developed a blood test that measures stress hormone levels after heart attacks. The test \u2013 costing just \u00a310 \u2013 could ensure patients receive timely life-saving treatment.
The Chief Scientist Office of the Government of Scotland has awarded a collaborative grant of \u00a3298,966 to Dr Mootaz Salman to seek new therapeutic avenues to treat stroke.
Professor of Sleep Physiology Vladyslav Vyazovskiy and Professor of Developmental Neuroscience Zolt\u00e1n Moln\u00e1r have been awarded a Project Grant from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) for \u201cBrain mechanisms of sleep: top-down or bottom-up?\u201d
A new study, co-authored by Professor Vladyslav Vyazovskiy, published in Nature Neuroscience, has revealed that intracellular chloride levels within cortical pyramidal neurons reflect sleep\u2013wake history.
Research led by Dr Elizabeth Haythorne and Professor Frances Ashcroft reveals high blood glucose reprograms the metabolism of pancreatic beta-cells in diabetes. They have discovered that glucose metabolites, rather than glucose itself, are key to the progression of type 2 diabetes. Glucose metabolites damage pancreatic beta-cell function, so they are unable to release enough of the hormone insulin. Reducing the rate at which glucose is metabolised, and these glucose metabolites build up, can prevent the effects of hyperglycaemia.
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