GCB News

A detailed analysis of the lives of nearly a thousand people from birth to age 38 shows that a small portion of the population accounts for the lion’s share of social costs such as crime, welfare dependence and health-care needs as adults.

Just one-fifth of the study population accounted for 81 percent of criminal convictions and 77 percent of fatherless childrearing. This fifth of the group also consumed three-quarters of drug prescriptions, two-thirds of welfare benefits and more than half of the hospital nights and cigarettes smoked.

Cancer rewires the metabolism of tumor cells, converting them into lean, mean, replicating machines. But like Olympic athletes who rely on special diets to perform, tumor cells’ amped-up metabolism can also make them dependent on specific nutrients for survival.

For years, scientists have been trying to identify and understand these cellular cravings in hopes of creating new cancer treatments that work by blocking off access to necessary nutrients and starving tumors to death.

Linda Hong, lab analyst in the Reddy Lab and research analyst in the Crawford Lab, is one of three people awarded a 2016 Research Staff Appreciation Award from the Duke School of Medicine. This award recognizes staff members who provide exemplary support in the conduct of basic, clinical and translational research projects.

“There are big picture goals that I am a small part of, and it’s important to not let others down,” Hong said. “You owe it to yourself to be the best you can be all the time.”

Science News has highlighted GCB's Lawrence David in the second annual SN 10: Scientists to Watch list for his research on the microbiome.

Read his profile from Science News: Lawrence David's gut check gets personal.

See the rest of the SN 10 list.

Duke postdoctoral associate Max Villa was one of 15 scholars selected to receive the 2016 Postdoctoral Enrichment Program Award from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. The fellowship grants a total of $60,000 over three years to support the career development of underrepresented minorities conducting postdoctoral research in the United States or Canada.

What do you do if you’re being chased by a bear? Run! How do you do it? With a little help from cortisol – a hormone that regulates part of the body’s response to stress. Cortisol reduces inflammation in your joints and mobilizes glucose into your body to give your muscles energy to run. 

A new study suggests that CRISPR/Cas9 can help cells be reprogrammed from one type to another directly, without first inducing pluripotency. It's another step towards the ability to precisely modify the epigenomic landscape in cells.

Allison Lopatkin, a doctoral student in Dr. Lingchong You’s laboratory, is the lead author of a new study published online in Nature Microbiology that turns assumptions about the cause of antibiotics resistance on its head and suggests new directions for antibiotic use.

The Buchler Lab has seen three recently published articles:

Dr. Lawrence David is one of several to be named a 2015 Beckman Young Investigator for his work using natural bacterial interactions to control microbial communities. The Beckman Young Investigator Program aims at providing research support to the most promising young faculty members in the early stages of their academic careers.