http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. The 20 proteins in the Wnt family are some of the most important proteins in controlling how an organism develops and grows, but for 30 years scientists have not known what these vital proteins actually look like. The proteins have eluded standard visualization techniques, in large part because they do not dissolve well in the water-based liquids normally used for biochemical studies. But once Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator K. Christopher Garcia, and Claudia Janda, a post-doctoral fellow in his Stanford University School of Medicine lab, thought of an approach to make the proteins behave better, they succeeded in solving the first structure of a Wnt protein. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-molecular-picture-protein-family-vital.html Medical research Thu, 31 May 2012 14:00:18 EST news257688856 Breast-cancer researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found that two related receptors in a robust signaling pathway must work together as a team to maintain normal activity in mammary stem cells. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-breast-stem-cell-receptor-teamwork-required.html Cancer Wed, 30 May 2012 13:40:01 EST news257602172 A team of researchers from the University of Utah and Brigham Young University has developed a mouse model of focal dermal hypoplasia, a rare human birth defect that causes serious skin abnormalities and other medical problems. This animal model not only provides insight into studying the cause of focal dermal hypoplasia (FDH), but also offers a novel way to study a signaling pathway that is crucial for embryonic development. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-animal-rare-genetic-disorder-pathway.html Medical research Wed, 20 Jul 2011 14:13:58 EST news230390023