Welcome to the LabRoots blog, where you can catch up on all the exciting news from the company, as well as check out all the comings and goings of the team.

07 Aug, 2013 | by

Are you sure your medication is working when you take it? For certain people, a strain of bacteria in their gut is getting to their cardiac drugs and inactivating them before they’ve had a chance to work. It’s a discovery that could give new insight to human cell biology and why different people experience different...

06 Aug, 2013 | by

A new neuroscience study from the Wayne State University of Medicine may have identified the first real insight into the neural origins of the uncomfortable hot flashes experienced by menopausal women. Until now, every study attempting to understand the body’s response to thermoregulatory events has been carried out by applying heat stimuli to the skin. But a...

05 Aug, 2013 | by

Researchers at Johns Hopkins made big steps towards the eventual creation of customized blood vessels this month. Creating new blood vessel networks from stem cells, the scientists were able to successfully transplant them into laboratory mice. The manufactured blood vessel network, which is produced through the reprogramming of ordinary cells, is a big accomplishment in...

02 Aug, 2013 | by

Engineers have created a brand new, three dimensional hydrogel that mimics the conditions of the human brain better than any previous gel. The clinical applications of the new hydrogel are varied, but at the moment it’s giving researchers a whole new way to study glioblastoma multiforme – an aggressive and notoriously deadly form of brain cancer. Traditionally, researchers...

01 Aug, 2013 | by

A new clinical application of some psychedelic drugs may provide a surprising new method for treating PTSD and related disorders. Found naturally in some mushrooms, psilocybin is a compound that stimulates certain serotonin receptors inside the human brain. Used for years in religious ceremonies by non-western cultures and people, psilocybin is best known for its psychedelic...

31 Jul, 2013 | by

Neuroscience researchers at Virginia Tech’s Carilion Research Institute have made a discovery that links schizophrenia and bipolar disorder to a brain protein pathway critical in the formation of long-term memories. Rap1 is a protein pathway found in the brain, and it’s responsible for controlling the L-type calcium channels that assist in the formation of long-term memories....

30 Jul, 2013 | by

A new stem cell biology-based approach may one day help the thousands of patients in need of a liver transplant every year. In 2011, around 5,800 liver transplant surgeries were performed in the United States. That same year, nearly 3,000 more patients died while waiting for their turn on the waiting lists. This scarcity of human...

29 Jul, 2013 | by

A new animal model, developed by Canada’s McMaster University, is giving scientists a different way to study Crohn’s disease. The clinical applications for the new model are varied, and all will hopefully guide researchers towards a better understanding and more effective treatments for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases. Adherent-invasive E. coli has been associated with human Crohn’s disease....

26 Jul, 2013 | by

A team of neuroscientists at UCLA’s Center for Sleep Research has made a discovery that could signal a major find in the search for a cause and eventual cure for narcolepsy. Characterized by random, uncontrollable periods of deep sleep, the disorder has baffled the neuroscience community for years, and affects roughly one in every 3,000...

25 Jul, 2013 | by

Researchers at Arizona State University have discovered a way to reverse brain aging in older honeybees, by giving them the kinds of responsibilities normally handled by much younger bees. The study and subsequent clinical applications may give us a new look at how social intervention and responsibility can bolster drug therapies in the fight against...