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Researchers reveal spatiotemporal multi-omics evolutionary map of liver cancer metastasis
2023-12-22
SLST teams with Correctseq report new cures for β-hemoglobinopathies
2023-12-05
Breakthrough Discovery by ShanghaiTech researchers published in Nature
2023-11-16
Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology: Base editing of organellar DNA with programmable deaminases
2023-10-13
ShanghaiTech team makes breakthroughs with discoveries about bitter taste receptors
The taste sensory system is responsible for examining food nutrition and avoiding ingestion of harmful substances. In humans, the tastants evoke five distinct taste sensations: sweet, bitter, salty, sour and umami. Interestingly, ion channels transduce the sour and salty signals, whereas, sweet, umami and bitter taste are mediated by G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). Among the five taste modalities, the bitter taste perception plays a vital role in protecting mammals from ingesting harmful substances, and there are 25 bitter taste receptors which are also known as type 2 taste receptors (TAS2Rs) or class T GPCRs. However, little is known about how TAS2Rs recognize diverse bitter compounds, the molecular basis of activation and signaling.
2022-09-16
World’s first “Perturb-Atlas” for deciphering gene function!
The sequence of the human genome is currently well-known, but the functions of the 20,000 protein-coding genes in over 500 types of cells remain unsolved, which severely hampers disease diagnosis and treatment. To systematically decipher the functions of all the genes in all the cells, one needs to inactivate (perturb) these genes and characterize the resulting cellular phenotypes, namely to map the “Perturb-Atlas”. Successful mapping of the atlas will become a watershed in the history of biomedical research, because the atlas will enable one to discover the basic function of any gene in any cell type with the click of a computer mouse, rather than spending years of labor, as is typically the case today. However, suitable methods for mapping the Perturb-Atlas have remained elusive until now.
2022-07-25
ShanghaiTech research selected among Top Ten Scientific Achievements in China in 2021
On February 28, the list of Top Ten Scientific Achievements in China in 2021 was officially released by the High Technology Research and Development Center of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST). The research achievement “Elucidating the molecular mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 RNA escaping from nucleoside antiviral drugs” has been selected. It was undertaken by a joint research team led by SIAIS Distinguished Adjunct Professor Rao Zihe, SIAIS Associate Research Professor Gao Yan, and Professor Lou Zhiyong from Tsinghua University.
2022-03-02
Discovery of a new mechanism of lipid modulation for voltage-gated potassium channels
The voltage-gated potassium (Kv) channels promote the outflow of potassium ions in the repolarization phase of the action potential and play a crucial role in regulating the membrane potential of excitable cells in the neuronal and cardiovascular systems. The human Kv channels are composed of 12 subfamilies (Kv1-Kv12), among which Kv7, also known as KCNQ channels, have important physiological and pathological functions. Dysfunction of KCNQ channels will lead to a number of severe diseases, including seizures, deafness, neurodevelopmental and cognitive disorders, and arrhythmia. Activators or inhibitors for KCNQ channels could be developed as therapeutic drugs for various diseases. However the only drug (Retigabine) targeting KCNQ shows limited efficacy along with certain side effects, suggesting that a better understanding of the mechanism of channel opening will be essential in guiding the new-generation drug discoveries targeting KCNQ channels. Therefore, it was necessary to conduct a study to reveal the structural basis of channel modulation by endogenous ligands and drug candidates so as to guide the future direction in basic biology, translational medicine, and clinical studies.
2021-11-15