In hopes of developing a possible treatment for COVID-19, a team of MIT chemists has designed a drug candidate that they believe may block coronaviruses' ability to enter human cells. The potential drug is a short protein ...
Mar 30, 2020
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Chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is becoming increasingly widespread. Until now, however, the underlying causes of the inflammation responses were unclear. Scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have ...
Feb 2, 2022
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Estrogen is known to play an important role in the protection of women's hearts, but once women are postmenopausal and estrogen levels drop, they are at an increased risk of a number of diseases and conditions, including ...
Mar 10, 2023
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UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found that intermittent fasting inhibits the development and progression of the most common type of childhood leukemia.
Dec 12, 2016
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One of the defining features of Covid-19 is the excessive immune response that can occur in severe cases. This burst of immune overreaction, also called a cytokine storm, damages the lungs and can be fatal.
Apr 16, 2020
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The world's smallest arms race could be happening right now in your gut.
Aug 19, 2022
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Bisphenol S (BPS), a substitute for the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) in the plastic industry, shows the potential for increasing the aggressiveness of breast cancer through its behavior as an endocrine-disrupting chemical, ...
Apr 2, 2017
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Antipsychotic drugs—used to treat the millions of people in the U.S. with schizophrenia—have lots of unpleasant side effects. The drugs also aren't effective for many people. There is an urgent need to develop better ...
Jul 18, 2023
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Cells in the nervous system can "put the brakes" on the immune response to infections in the gut and lungs to prevent excessive inflammation, according to research by Weill Cornell Medicine scientists. This insight may one ...
Mar 2, 2018
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An international team of biotechnologists and neuroscientists has found the mechanism responsible for reducing depression symptoms in patients given two kinds of hallucinogenic compounds. In their mouse study, reported in ...
In biochemistry, a receptor is a protein molecule, embedded in either the plasma membrane or cytoplasm of a cell, to which a mobile signaling (or "signal") molecule may attach. A molecule which binds to a receptor is called a "ligand," and may be a peptide (such as a neurotransmitter), a hormone, a pharmaceutical drug, or a toxin, and when such binding occurs, the receptor undergoes a conformational change which ordinarily initiates a cellular response. However, some ligands merely block receptors without inducing any response (e.g. antagonists). Ligand-induced changes in receptors result in physiological changes which constitute the biological activity of the ligands.
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