MIT scientists have found a way to induce cells to form parallel tube-like structures that could one day serve as tiny engineered blood vessels.

Neurotransmitters have consequences. They initiate events that are critical to a healthy life, giving us the ability to move, to talk, to breathe, to think. But that’s if the neurotransmitters are getting it right and sending proper signals downstream to muscle cells, neurons or other cells.

Time-lapse videos and computer simulations provide the first concrete molecular explanation of how a cell flexes tiny muscle-like structures to pinch itself into two daughter cells at the end of each cell division, according to a report in Science Express.

Separating out particular kinds of cells from a sample could become faster, cheaper and easier thanks to a new system developed by MIT researchers that involves levitating the cells with light.

Seeing proteins in their natural environment and interactions inside cells has been a long-standing goal. Using an advanced microscopy technique called cryo-electron tomography, researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL] have visualised proteins responsible for cell-cell contacts for the first time.

Looking through the eyes of a mouse, scientists monitor circulating cells in its bloodstream

A wireless, nano-scale voltmeter developed at the University of Michigan is overturning conventional wisdom about the physical environment inside cells. It may someday help researchers tackle such tricky medical issues as why cancer cells grow out of control and how damaged nerves might be mended.

A group of Purdue University researchers has captured a key step in the metabolic process that allows materials, such as nutrients and drug treatments, to move in and out of cells.

Sometimes healthy cells commit suicide. In the 1970s, scientists showed that a type of programmed cell death called apoptosis plays a key role in development, and the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine recognized their work. As apoptotic cells degrade, they display standard characteristics, including irregular bulges in the membrane and nuclear fragmentation.

“See those white sparks?” asks Kirk Czymmek, as he points to the video on his computer screen of a highly magnified heart cell in action. Tiny fireworks flash across the screen with every pulsation of the cell.

MIT and University of Rochester researchers report important advances toward a therapeutic device that has the potential to capture cells as they flow through the blood stream and treat them. Among other applications, such a device could zap cancer cells spreading to other tissues, or signal stem cells to differentiate.

New insights into the cellular signal chain through which pheromones stimulate mating in yeast have been gained by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL]. Similar signal chains are found in humans, where they are involved in many important processes such as the differentiation of nerve cells and the development of cancer.