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As the line between academia and industry blurs, conflict-of-interest issues have gone from black and white to all the shades in between. Tinker Ready scans the spectrum for clarity.
A new animal model for macular degeneration begins to reveal the inner workings of the delicate system of inflammatory checks and balances underlying this form of vision loss (pages 1390–1397).
One approach to developing antiobesity drugs is to shift the energy balance in the body in favor of burning fat. A transcriptional coactivator is now assigned this task.
Glucose transport into the cell is a delicate process that is highly responsive to insulin. A newly identified protein that may tether to the glucose transporter helps keep glucose traffic running smoothly in human cells.
Effective cancer vaccines targeted against specific antigens have eluded researchers for decades. When combined with a drug, one such vaccine now shrinks tumors in a mouse model of promyelocytic leukemia (pages 1413–1417).
M. tuberculosis persists in the body, sequestered inside macrophages and subverting the phagocytic machinery to create a membrane-bound home. Microarray profiling studies reveal how the bacterium settles into its new environment.
Even when the chips are stacked against him, microarray pioneer Patrick Brown remains an incurable optimist. After defeating dogma in biochemistry and genetics, Brown is taking on the world of publishing—and he still hasn't run out of breath.
Molecules that regulate contraction in skeletal muscle have now found a place in the axon. In response to injury, the ryanodine receptor mediates the release of internal calcium stores, which contributes to axonal damage.
Artemin reverses pain and neurochemical changes after nerve injury in an animal model. The molecule could potentially treat neuropathic pain, in which even the slightest touch can hurt (pages 1383–1389).