Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay
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Past articles by Rajendrani:
A new angle (DIPG)
Downloadable audio version A new angle A rare brain tumor kills 250 children every year in North America. But the discovery of a mutation in an unexpected gene has given researchers new drug targets and brings hope that someday this cancer can be tamed. By Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay Denise Downing with her daughter Caitlin.Image provided by Denise Downing Some of these cancers affect thousands of… → Read More
Features: Punks who publish
Is there something inherent to punk rock that attracts scientists? At first blush, there would seem to be little overlap between the methodical deliberation of science and the loud aggression of punk. Yet, upon deeper inspection, the similarities start to become apparent. Both are magnets for individuals willing to question convention. Both involve a search for truth. And both rely on creative… → Read More
Meet Lila Gierasch, JBC editor-in-chief
Meet Lila Gierasch, JBC editor-in-chief An expert in protein folding, Gierasch says the Journal of Biological Chemistry welcomes all research that gets to the heart of "mechanistic origins and underpinnings" Published July 01 2017 By Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay Lila Gierasch became editor of JBC in July 2016. For the past year, Lila Gierasch at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, has been the… → Read More
Crazy for cryo-EM
Crazy for cryo-EM The National Institutes of Health will fund national cryo-electron microscopy facilities to give biologists better access to the method Published May 01 2017 By Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay Cryo-electron microscopy is coming to a corner relatively near you. The National Institutes of Health has decided to fund national facilities with the latest cryo-EM instrumentation. Although… → Read More
Crazy for cryo-EM
Crazy for cryo-EM The National Institutes of Health will fund national cryo-electron microscopy facilities to give biologists better access to the method Published May 01 2017 By Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay Cryo-electron microscopy is coming to a corner relatively near you. The National Institutes of Health has decided to fund national facilities with the latest cryo-EM instrumentation. Although… → Read More
Feature: Devoted to DNA
Devoted to DNA Fyodor Urnov of Sangamo Biosciences has built a career as a genome editor and a teacher of genetics By Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay Fyodor Urnov at Sangamo BioSciences is one of the world’s experts in exploiting zincfinger nucleases for gene editing applications. He is also an adjunct faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley. IMAGE COURTESY OF FYODOR URNOV It was day… → Read More
Robinson honored
RUTH KIRSCHSTEIN DIVERSITY IN SCIENCE AWARD Robinson honored for helping disadvantaged high-school students Published April 03 2017 By Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay “Science provides innovative solutions for health, environmental and technological challenges. Often overlooked is that science can and should provide career opportunities to everyone, regardless of their socioeconomic background. Dr.… → Read More
News: Proteins get their own periodic table
Proteins get their own periodic table By Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay An interactive periodic table of protein complexes. EMBL-EBI / SPENCER PHILLIPS Much like Legos, proteins can come together in a number of ways to create complex structures. The various ways make it hard to organize protein complexes into categories. But now, in a paper just out in Science, researchers describe an approach to… → Read More
Features: The placenta: the organ of mystery
The placenta: a mysterious organ The Human Placenta Project aims to understand better what the placenta does, how it does it and what can make it fail By Alexandra Pantos & Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay Tara Shafer with her children, Reid (age 12), David (age 8) and Isabelle (age 5). David and Isabelle were born after Shafer received treatment for thrombosis. TARA SHAFER In early winter 2005, Tara… → Read More
Features: Quantum biology continues to intrigue
Quantum biology continues to intrigue ‘It’s an attractive idea that nature has adopted, and optimized, fundamentally quantum phenomena’ By Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay There are hints that cryptochromes in monarch butterflies, which migrate, are sensitive to magnetic effects. What if you were told that a single proton or electron can influence the behavior of an entire biological molecule? Would you… → Read More
Note about Nobels
Note about Nobels Published December 01 2016 Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay It was two weeks after the Nobel Prizes were announced for this year (well, one week, if you include the delayed announcement of the literature prize to Bob Dylan). I was hosting a birthday party for one of my sons at home. This meant I had a herd of elementary-school boys stampeding through my house fueled by cheese pizza and… → Read More
Keeping it real
Carolyn Bertozzi isn't afraid to discuss "the petty humiliations of life" on social media. → Read More
Loaded questions
Loaded questions Faculty search committees ask many questions of job candidates. But some questions are off-limits. Published August 08 2016 By Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay In January, Deborah went on an interview for a tenure-track faculty position at a large, state-run research institution. The two-day interview kicked off with dinner at a restaurant with the department chairman. As Deborah, a cell… → Read More
Feature: A gut reaction
A gut reaction Sarkis Mazmanian is helping to change our view of gut bacteria as well as the education of Armenian graduate students Published June 29 2016 By Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay In 2012, Sarkis Mazmanian received a MacArthur Foundation award. JOHN D. AND CATHERINE T. MACARTHUR FOUNDATION About eight years ago, microbiologist Sarkis Mazmanian boarded an airplane in Los Angeles bound for… → Read More
Features: Lively lysosomes
Lively lysosomes The organelles aren’t just trash cans. As researchers now appreciate, lysosomes do much more for the cell’s well-being. Published May 4 2016 By Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay A typical drawing of an animal cell, sliced open to reveal cross-sections of organelles. The lysosomes are the green spheres. The red dots within the green spheres signify cellular components that need to be… → Read More
A chain of events
A chain of events Linear ubiquitin chains, whose very existence once was debated, now are known to play a critical role in an inflammatory disease, thanks to the discovery of an enzyme Published January 05 2016 By Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay A few years ago, David Komander was tipped off to a mysterious gene. Komander, a biochemist at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in… → Read More
Keep 'em separated
Dexter Holland, the lead singer of the punk-rock band The Offspring, has a lot of different interests. One of them is biology. → Read More
Virginia Lee: notes on a career
How the neurobiologist charted a successful path from the piano bench to the lab bench By Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay “I never really had a role model,” says Virginia M-Y Lee, director at the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research at the University of Pennsylvania, pausing to reflect on her unusual career path. “I made decisions based on a number of factors — of where I wanted to go and live,… → Read More
The quiet creep of Alzheimer’s disease
As caregivers grapple with the grim changes in their loved ones, researchers race to stall this neurodegenerative disorder By Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay One day in 2001, Jodi Bottoni came home to find her clothes, shoes, money and small purple beaded lamp on the driveway. Her mother had thrown them out the front door of their home in Venice, Fla. Bottoni, who in her 40s had moved back in with her… → Read More