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Originally published by Anna Megdell, University of Michigan, on November 2, 2023 Credit: CC0 Public Domain Metabolites called nucleotides are the building blocks of DNA and can impact cancer's sensitivity or resistance to chemotherapy and radiation in brain cancer. Findings from researchers at the University of Michigan Health Rogel Cancer Center , published in Cancer Discovery, show how a specific nucleotide metabolite , called GTP , controls responses to radiation and chemotherapy in an unexpected way. "We learned that if you increase a cell's GTP levels , it makes it really resistant to radiation or chemotherapy . Lowering GTP levels , the cell becomes much more sensitive ," said Daniel Wahl , M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of radiation oncology at Michigan Medicine and senior author of this paper. Researchers have long known that levels of nucleotides like GTP control how fast DNA damage is repaired , which in turn controls sensitivity to ther

Originally published by University of Lausanne on September 6, 2023   Credit: Public Domain A research team from University of Lausanne (UNIL) and the Wyss Center, has discovered a new type of cell essential for brain function . Hybrid in composition and function, in between the two types of brain cells known so far—the neurons and the glial cells—these cells of a new order are present in several brain regions in mice and humans . The study published in the journal Nature shows that these cells promote the ability to memorize , the brain control of movements , and contrast the insurgence of epileptic seizures . Neuroscience is in great upheava l. The two major families of cells that make up the brain, neurons and glial cells, secretly hid a hybrid cell, halfway between these two categories. For as long as neuroscience has existed, it has been recognized that the brain works primarily thanks to the neurons and their ability to rapidly elaborate and transmit informat