Jasmine Johnson and Gabe Vela might still be teenagers, but they are also seasoned scientists. It all started 3 years ago, when, as high school juniors, they took the research course Independent Studies in Computational Biology at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine. They were hooked. They continued to do research until they graduated, working part-time for 2 academic years and full-time for 2 summers. They worked with statistical geneticist Gary Churchill, using computational biology to explore the relationship between sleep and obesity. They focused on finding genes that regulate sleep and understanding how sleep affects the body. One goal of the research is to tease out a genetic explanation for why sleep deprivation increases the risk of obesity. Working in a lab “completely changed what I thought I was going to do with my life,” said Vela. “Now I’m going to focus more on research than anything else.” For Johnson, the experience provided the opportunity to present her research at the 2013 White House Science Fair, where she hobnobbed with some political hot shots. “It was an amazing experience,” she said. Having “important White House officials be interested in my project … inspired me.” Johnson and Vela visited NIH a few months ago and talked with us about their research experiences, their lives and their future goals. Jasmine Johnson & Gabriel Vela on their experience as high school researchers at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine. Learn More Article about Johnson and Vela and other young researchers, from The Jackson Laboratory’s magazine The Search. Article about the work of Gary Churchill, from NIH’s Findings magazine.

Many of us have some Neanderthal genes. Before Neanderthals went extinct about 30,000 years ago, they interbred with humans living in Europe and Asia. Today’s descendants of those pairings inherited about 2 percent of their genomes from the big-brained hominids. A research group led by David Reich at Harvard Medical School recently completed an analysis to determine the extent and identity of Neanderthal DNA in modern-day human populations. The group found that many traits in present-day people—including skin characteristics and susceptibility to various diseases—can be traced to Neanderthal DNA. It also appears that, genetically speaking, Neanderthals and humans weren’t completely compatible. Based on the uneven distribution of Neanderthal DNA in today’s genomes, the scientists concluded that many of the male offspring of Neanderthal-human unions were infertile. In the animal world, this phenomenon is known as hybrid infertility, where the offspring of a male from one subspecies and a female from another have low or no fertility. Studying human genes passed down through Neanderthals—as well as regions of the human genome notably devoid of Neanderthal DNA—provides an increasingly complete picture of the genetic landscape that contributed to health, disease and diversity among humans today. Learn more: Harvard Medical School News Release Reich Lab

Cancer cells typically include many gene mutations, extra or missing genes, or even the wrong number of chromosomes. Scientists know that certain genetic changes lead to ones elsewhere. But they’ve had a chicken-and-egg problem trying to figure out which changes trigger which others—or whether mutations accumulate randomly in tumors. New research led by J. Marie Hardwick of Johns Hopkins University sheds light on the issue. She found that incapacitating a single gene in yeast cells—regardless of which gene it was—spurred mutations in one or two other genes. The process was anything but random: If, say, gene X was knocked out, yeast cells almost always developed a secondary mutation in gene Y. It’s as if knocking out one gene disrupts the genomic balance enough that the cell must alter a different gene to compensate. Significantly, the secondary mutations—but not the original ones—caused altered yeast cell characteristics, including traits linked to cancer. Also, many of the secondary mutations occurred in genes associated with cancer in humans, further suggesting that these secondary changes might play a role in carcinogenesis. This new information will help researchers better understand the chain of genetic events that lead to cancer. It might also prompt scientists to reevaluate years of research that attributed changes in cell behavior or appearance to a given gene knockout. This work also was funded by NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Learn more: Johns Hopkins University News Release

Scientists know that variations in certain genes can affect the way a person responds to medications. New research by Wolfgang Sadee at Ohio State University shows that drug responses also depend on previously overlooked parts of DNA—sections that regulate genes, but are not considered genes themselves. This study focused on an important enzyme abbreviated CYP2D6 that processes about one-fourth of all prescription drugs. Differences in the enzyme’s performance, which range from zilch to ultra-rapid, can dramatically alter the effectiveness and safety of certain medications. Researchers discovered two new genetic variants that impact CYP2D6 performance. One of these, located in a non-gene, regulatory region of DNA, doubles or even quadruples enzyme activity. Coupling these findings with genetic tests could help doctors better identify each patient’s CYP2D6 activity level, enabling more precise prescriptions. The findings also open up a whole new area of investigation into genetic factors that impact drug response. This work also was funded by NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Learn more: Ohio State University News Release (no longer available)

Whether injured by a scrape, minor burn or knife wound, skin goes through the same steps to heal itself. Regrowing hair over new skin is one of the final steps. All the hair you can see on your body is non-living, made up of “dead” cells and protein. It sprouts from living cells in the skin called hair follicle stem cells, shown here in red and orange. For more pictures of hair follicle stem cells—and many other stunning scientific images and videos—go to the NIGMS Image and Video Gallery. Learn more: Rockefeller University News Release Steller Lab

Every October, a few scientists receive a call from Sweden that changes their lives. From that day forward, they will be known as Nobel laureates. This year, five of the new Nobelists have received funding from NIGMS.

In physiology or medicine, NIGMS grantees James Rothman (Yale University) and Randy Schekman (University of California, Berkeley) were honored “for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells.” They share the prize with Thomas C. Südhof of Stanford University.

Rothman and Schekman started out working separately and in different systems—Schekman in yeast and Rothman in reconstituted mammalian cells—and their conclusions validated each others’. It’s yet another example of the power of investigator-initiated research and the value of model systems.

The three Nobelists in chemistry are NIGMS grantees Martin Karplus (Harvard University), Michael Levitt (Stanford University) and Arieh Warshel (University of Southern California), who developed “multiscale models for complex chemical systems.” They used computational techniques to obtain, for the first time, detailed structural information about proteins and other large molecules. Because of that work, scientists around the world are now able to access, with a few keystrokes, highly accurate models of nearly 100,000 molecular structures. Studying these structures has advanced our understanding of countless diseases, pharmaceuticals and basic biological processes.

Learn more:

NIGMS Nobel Prize News Announcement
NIGMS Nobelists Fact Sheet

A new video, starring the toxin in bee venom, might help scientists design new drugs to combat bacterial infections. The video, by Rice University biophysicist Huey Huang, condenses 6.5 minutes into less than a minute to show how the toxin, called melittin, destroys an animal or bacterial cell. What looks like a red balloon is an artificial cell filled with red dye. Melittin molecules are colored green and float on the cell’s surface like twigs on a pond. As melittin accumulates on the cell’s membrane, the membrane expands to accommodate it. In the video, the membrane stretches into a column on the left. When melittin levels reach a critical threshold, countless pinhole leaks burst open in the membrane. The cell’s vital fluids—red dye in the video—leak out through these pores. Within minutes, the cell collapses. Many organisms use such a pore-forming technique to kill attacking bacterial cells. This research reveals molecular-level details of the strategy, bringing pharmaceutical scientists a step closer to harnessing it in the design of new antibiotics.

As a newly appointed MacArthur Fellow, Phil Baran is now officially a genius. The MacArthur award recognizes “exceptionally creative” individuals who have made significant contributions to their field and are expected to continue doing so. Baran, a synthetic organic chemist at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., was recognized today for “inventing efficient, scalable, and environmentally sound methods” for building, from scratch, molecules produced in nature. Many of these natural products have medicinal properties. Baran has already concocted a host of natural products, including those with the ability to kill bacteria or cancer cells. In addition to emphasizing the important pharmaceutical applications of his work, Baran embraces its creative aspects: “The area of organic chemistry is such a beautiful one because one can be both an artist and an explorer at the same time,” he said in the MacArthur video interview .

Have you seen the NIGMS image gallery? We'd love to feature your work there.

The gallery contains photos, illustrations and videos that showcase NIGMS-supported science. It's a place where teachers, students, journalists and even I go to obtain images that help people understand and appreciate biomedical research.

If you have interesting or striking images or videos created with NIGMS support, please e-mail me! We prefer entries without copyright restrictions (i.e., never published or for which you retain the copyright). Images in the gallery are freely available for educational, news media or other informational purposes.

You might also consider entering the International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge sponsored by the National Science Foundation and Science. Entries, which are due by September 15, can include photography, illustrations, informational posters and graphics, interactive games and non-interactive media. They can be pedagogical, playful or just plain pretty. Winning submissions will appear in a February 2011 issue of Science and will be featured online by Science and NSF. Let me know if you win, so NIGMS can feature the image, too!

I have judged this competition for the past 2 years and can give you more details if you're interested.

If you've gotten funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, you know how important it is to tell people in your community that this support is having an impact. We want to hear from you, too. Your stories can help us show the American public how the Recovery Act is working to accelerate research, stimulate the economy, and create or retain jobs.

So please tell us about how this funding has helped you. The impact can be large or small, immediate or long-range. Did you hire a promising new scientist or keep someone from losing a job? Were you able to form new collaborations or purchase critical equipment? Did the Recovery Act help speed your research, enable you to make new discoveries, or advance science in other ways? For training programs, were you able to develop new curricula or other activities that you would not have been able to do otherwise?

We invite you to share your experiences now and in the future using our What's Your Recovery Act Story? (no longer available)+ Web form. We’ll post a sampling of what you send us on our new Recovery Act Impact Web page. Check out the ones we’ve already posted there to see what your colleagues are saying.