New research published online in the FASEB Journal suggests that a specific enzyme, called 5-lipoxygenase, plays a key role in cell death induced by microgravity environments, and that inhibiting this enzyme will likely help prevent or lessen the severity of immune problems in astronauts caused by spaceflight. Additionally, since space conditions initiate health problems that mimic the aging process on Earth, this discovery may also lead to therapeutics that extend lives by bolstering the immune systems of the elderly.

University of Iowa biologists have advanced the knowledge of human neurodevelopmental disorders by finding that a lack of a particular group of cell adhesion molecules in the cerebral cortex -- the outermost layer of the brain where language, thought and other higher functions take place -- disrupts the formation of neural circuitry.

Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) was originally discovered in fruit flies as a transcriptional repressor. Historically, fly and human Polycomb proteins were considered textbook exemplars of transcriptional repressors, or proteins that silence the process by which DNA gives rise to new proteins. Now, work by a team of researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research challenges that dogma.