Recent News

Certain types of stem cells use microscopic, threadlike nanotubes to communicate with neighboring cells LSI researchers have discovered.

LSI research shows for the first time that the age-old temperature law does not apply equally to adults and developing young.

For decades, scientists have known that ET-743, a compound extracted from the mangrove tunicate — a kind of sea squirt — can kill cancer cells. Until now, its precise origins were a mystery.

A class of FDA-approved cancer drugs may be able to prevent problems with brain cell development associated with disorders including Down syndrome and Fragile X syndrome.

It’s going to be easier for scientists to use roundworms to study diet-sensitive genes thanks to an innovation led by the LSI.

LSI-led research has identified a gene critical to controlling the body’s ability to create blood cells and immune cells from blood-forming stem cells — known as hematopoietic stem cells.

Organ transplantation has been one of the greatest successes of modern medicine. But one of its largest limitations comes from a patient’s immune system treating the new heart, or lung, or liver like a foreign invader.

With the aid of X-ray crystallography, researchers at the University of Michigan have revealed the structures of two closely related enzymes that play essential roles in the body’s ability to metabolize excess lipids, including cholesterol.

Anna Mapp, Ph.D. has been awarded the 2015 Emil Thomas Kaiser Award from the Protein Society. The award recognizes a recent, highly significant contribution in applying chemistry to the study of proteins.

LSI researchers have identified how a promising drug in clinical trials for the treatment of obesity and related metabolic disorders improves the metabolism of sugar by generating a new signal between fat cells and the liver.

How structural features of a critical enzyme found in the cardiovascular system influence its regulation of heart activity

LSI scientists have discovered how a previously unknown hormone serves as a messenger from fat cells to the liver and are investigating the potential of developing a new treatment for metabolic disorders.

LSI scientists have shown how a single neuron can perform multiple functions in a model organism, illuminating for the first time this fundamental biological mechanism and shedding light on the human brain.

LSI researchers uncover information about a little-known signaling lipid pathway that unexpectedly plays critical roles in neuronal synapses in humans.

LSI researchers have illuminated steps of the molecular mechanism that increases the overall output of cells during normal brain development

LSI researchers have described a new approach to discovering potential cancer treatments that requires a fraction of the time needed for more traditional methods.

Eli Benchell Eisman, a post-doctoral research fellow working in the lab of David Sherman in the LSI and a STEM-Africa Seed Scholar, spent ten weeks in Ghana investigating plant-based traditional medicines in hopes of ultimately developing new drugs.

A team of scientists from U-M, Duke Medicine and Stanford University has determined the underlying architecture of a cellular signaling complex involved in the body's response to stimuli such as light and pain.

Researchers at the LSI have obtained for the first time three-dimensional snapshots of the “assembly line” within microorganisms that naturally produces antibiotics and other drugs. 

LSI researchers have discovered a key regulator of autophagy, the cellular recycling process involved in many human diseases. The finding illuminates potential new drug targets for cancer, neurodegeneration and other diseases.

Researchers at the LSI and the National Biodiversity Institute (INBio) in Costa Rica have discovered a new antibiotic that is active against both Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and anthrax in laboratory tests.

Researchers at U-M have shown that the specific connection of sensory neurons to the correct targets in the central nervous system in fruit flies is dependent on how active the neurons are.

LSI researchers have discovered a key enzyme responsible for regulating the final step in the movement of organelles during cell division and differentiation.

A team of scientists at U-M and Purdue University has discovered a key aspect both to how the viruses replicate in the cells of their host and how they manipulate the immune system as they spread.  

U-M researchers have determined how a gene that is known to be defective in Down syndrome is regulated and how its dysregulation may lead to neurological defects, providing insights into potential therapeutic approaches to an aspect of the syndrome.