Investigators at Georgetown University Medical Center have been able to use simple, nontoxic chemical injections to add and remove fat in targeted areas on the bodies of laboratory animals. In what they call a “stunning research advance,” investigators at Georgetown University Medical Center have been able to use simple, non-toxic chemical injections to add and remove fat in targeted areas on the bodies of laboratory animals. They say the discovery, published online in Nature Medicine on July 1, could revolutionize human cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgery and treatment of diseases associated with human obesity.

Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have developed a novel strategy to expand the natural repertoire of 20 amino acids in mammalian cells, including neurons, and successfully inserted tailor-made amino acids into proteins in these cells. In a powerful demonstration of the method’s versatility, they then used unnatural amino acids to determine the operating mechanism of the “molecular gates” that regulate the movement of potassium ions in and out of nerve cells.

As a fertilized egg develops into a full grown adult, mammalian cells make many crucial decisions — closing doors of opportunity as they adopt careers as liver cells, skin cells, or neurons. One of the most fundamental mysteries in biomedicine is how cells make such different career decisions despite having exactly the same DNA. By using a new kind of genomic technology, a new study unveils a special code — not within DNA, but within the so-called “chromatin” proteins surrounding it — that could unlock these mysterious choices underlying cell identity.

In a study of more than 100,000 patients treated for depression, suicide attempts declined during the first month of treatment—whether that treatment consisted of medication, psychotherapy, or both. The findings, published by Group Health researchers in the July American Journal of Psychiatry, show a similar pattern for populations of adolescents and young adults (up to age 24) as for older adults.