Agriculture faces serious problems in feeding 9 billion people by 2050: production must be increased and ecosystem services maintained under conditions for growing crops that are predicted to worsen in many parts of the world. A proposed solution is sustainable intensification of agriculture, whereby yields are increased on land that is currently cultivated, so sparing land to deliver other ecosystem services. Genetically modified (GM) crops are already contributing to sustainable intensification through higher yields and lower environmental impacts, and have potential to deliver further significant improvements. Despite their widespread successful use elsewhere, the European Union (EU)... continue reading

Carlos López-Larrea, Antonio López-Vázquez, Beatriz Suárez-Álvarez

• Focuses on the guidance cues and molecular pathways regulating HSC trafficking
throughout the lifetime of the organism

• Summarizes some ongoing approaches of stem cell regenerative medicine

• Introduces recent findings from published studies and clinical trials

Nucleoli are prominent subnuclear organelles, and are known to be hubs of ribosome synthesis. A recent study of Brangwynne et al. reports that the nucleoli of Xenopus oocytes display “liquid drop” behavior, suggesting that nucleolar structure may be driven by rather simple physical principles.

Recent recommendations by the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) to redact key methodological details of two studies involving mammal-to-mammal transmission of the H5N1 (H5) subtype influenza viruses, has led to a temporary moratorium on all research involving live H5N1 or H5 HA reassortant viruses shown to be transmissible in ferrets. Herein, I review the events which led to this impasse and comment on their impact.

Michael Balls, Robert Combes, Nirmala Bhogal

• Provides valuable and detailed insight into many of the latest techniques

• Describes several techniques, which broaden the range and improve the sensitivity and relevance of toxicity endpoints, investigated both in vitro and in vivo

• Introduces new methods and systems

William S. Spielman, Narayanan Parameswaran

• Source of basic studies that range from biochemistry to molecular biology to receptor pharmacology and physiology

• Written by authors well known in the RAMPs field

• Provides information for scientists at different stages of their career including graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and senior scientists who are new to the RAMPs field

The innate immune system provides the first line of defense against invading microorganisms by inducing a variety of inflammatory and antimicrobial responses. These responses are particularly important in the gastrointestinal tract, where the needs for efficient nutrient uptake and host defense collide. Many pathogens have evolved to specifically colonize the intestine, causing millions of cases of enteric infections a year. A paradigm of an enteric pathogen is Salmonella enterica, a gram-negative bacterium that causes a wide range of gastrointestinal and systemic diseases. Infections with Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (S. typhimurium) lead to an acute... continue reading

Designer T cells expressing transgenic T cell receptors (TCR) with anti-tumor specificity offer new treatment options for cancer patients. We developed a three phase procedure to identify T cells of high avidity based on the fact that T cells recognizing peptides presented by allogeneic MHC efficiently kill tumor cells. Autologous dendritic cells (DC) are co-transfected with ivt-RNA encoding an allogeneic MHC molecule and a selected antigen to allow them to express allogeneic MHC-peptide complexes that activate allo-restricted peptide-specific T cells. This approach provides great flexibility for obtaining high-avidity T cells as potential sources of TCR for adoptive T cell therapy.

Jean-François Jasmin, Philippe G. Frank, Michael P. Lisanti

• Discusses pleiotropic functions of caveolae and caveolin proteins
• Presents the role and function of caveolae and caveolins in cell signaling and human disease mechanisms
• Focuses on selected topics