cold spring harbor

A four-year, multi-institutional effort co-led by three Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory scientists culminated today in publication of a landmark series of papers in the journal Science revealing in unprecedented detail the DNA sequence of maize.

Maize, or corn, as it is commonly called by North American consumers, is one of the world's most important plants and the most valuable agricultural crop grown in the United States, representing $47 billion in annual value.

A team of scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) reports their success in solving the molecular structure of a key portion of a cellular receptor implicated in Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other serious illnesses.

Assistant Professor Hiro Furukawa, Ph.D., and colleagues at CSHL, in cooperation with the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory, obtained crystal structures for one of several "subunits" of the NMDA receptor.

(Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) In response to the announcement today that Carol Greider, Ph.D., has been named a Nobel Laureate, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory President Bruce Stillman said, "Congratulations to CSHL alumna Carol Greider and her colleagues Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack Szostak for winning the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine."

(Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press has just released a new biography, "Francis Crick: Hunter of Life's Secrets." It is the first full-length intellectual biography of Francis Crick, a greatly admired and influential scientist who co-discovered the structure of DNA and then followed up this discovery with important contributions that shaped the foundations of molecular biology.

(Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) Combining a 2,000-year-old Chinese math theorem with concepts from cryptology, scientists from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have devised "DNA Sudoku" -- a pooling strategy that allows tens of thousands of DNA samples to be combined and sequenced all at once.

The new strategy promises to reduce costs dramatically, with sequencing projects that cost $10 million in the past now estimated to cost less than $80,000.

(Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) A team of neuroscientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has demonstrated the mechanism by which a signaling protein found throughout the brain controls the maturation and strength of excitatory synapses, the tiny gaps across which the majority of neurons communicate.

The discovery is important, in part, because deficits of the signaling protein in question, called oligophrenin-1, have been previously linked with X-linked mental retardation.

(Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) Highlights from the June 2009 issue of Cold Spring Harbor Protocols include protocols for ChIP-Seq and Drosophila targeted mutagenesis.

(Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) A new edition of "Medical Statistics Made Easy" was recently released by Scion Publishing.

It will serve as an essential resource for medical students and professionals who need to understand common statistical terms.