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Researchers have uncovered a protein they say controls how the body produces fat cells.

Called Thy1 it has a fundamental role in controlling whether a primitive cell decides to become a fat cell, the Daily Mail reports. Experts say it could be harnessed in obesity treatments.

We believe that weight gain is not necessarily just a result of eating more and exercising less, said lead author Richard Phipps of the University of Rochester. The Rochester team discovered that a protein, Thy1, has a fundamental role in controlling whether a primitive cell decides to become a fat cell, making Thy1 a possible therapeutic target, according to a study published online this month by the FASEB Journal.

University of Rochester researchers believe they're on track to solve the mystery of weight gain -- and it has nothing to do with indulging in holiday eggnog.

hey discovered that a protein, Thy1, has a fundamental role in controlling whether a primitive cell decides to become a fat cell, making Thy1 a possible therapeutic target, according to a study published online this month by the FASEB Journal.

The research brings a new, biological angle to a problem that's often viewed as behavioral, said lead author Richard P. Phipps, Ph.D. In fact, some diet pills consist of antidepressants or anti-addiction medications, and do not address what's happening at the molecular level to promote fat cell accumulation.

Since its discovery several decades ago, gene therapy has been a medicinal sphinx, with doctors as enamored by its potential as they are frustrated by the riddles it presents. Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center are working to solve one of those riddles.

In order for gene therapy to be effective, doctors must discern how to deliver DNA to a cell's nucleus, which requires a comprehensive understanding of how DNA and proteins move through cell cytoplasm. Knowledge of this system could lead to huge leaps in gene therapy effectiveness, and could potentially allow researchers to push forward on research into many currently-untreatable diseases.

The research is supported by a 4-year, $1.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. One of the best examples is cystic fibrosis, said David A. Dean, Ph.D., professor of Pediatrics and Neonatology at URMC and the study's lead researcher. For cystic fibrosis, we know what the affected gene is, and we know what the mutation is. We know the physiology. The road block is the delivery - getting the corrective DNA in there and to the right cells for the right amount of time.

Physicians know what a healthy human lung looks like, but researchers have never before created a comprehensive map that specifically measures lung development from birth through childhood.

Now, researchers at University of Rochester Medical Center have launched a five-year effort to develop such a map. The project, called the Human Lung Molecular Atlas Program, or LungMAP, includes researchers from several other institutions and is supported by more than $20 million from the National Institutes of Health, $6.1 million of which was awarded to URMC.

With a detailed map of human lung development, health care providers will be able to more readily identify children who may be at risk for lung problems. For example, physicians know that infants who are born prematurely are more likely to develop emphysema or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in adulthood or later in life.

“But we don’t always know which ones, or how severe their complications will be,” said Gloria Pryhuber, M.D., professor of Pediatrics and Environmental Medicine and the study’s lead researcher at URMC. “So that’s what this is really all about — we need to know more about how the lung is formed and heals normally, in order to encourage pre-term infants to develop more normally, and to help adult lungs to heal from diseases like pneumonia and emphysema.”

Sara Knowlden, a graduate student in the Georas Lab, has been awarded Best Graduate Student Poster at the URMC 6th annual Lung Research and Training Day for her poster entitled, Global inhibition of autotaxin alters the inflammatory response to house dust mite in mice. Congrats Sara!

Professor of Medicine, Steve Georas, has been awarded and NIH R01 grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). The grant is entitled Epithelial barrier dysfunction and mucosal immunity in asthma.

NHLBI provides science-based, plain-language information related to heart, lung, and blood diseases and conditions and sleep disorders and funds a wide range of NHLBI programs and research projects.

Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center have commenced a study that will be used to help shape the Food and Drug Administration’s regulations on e-cigarettes, hookahs, and miniature cigars in the coming years.

The five-year study, which is supported by a $2.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, in conjunction with the FDA, began Aug. 1.

“We know that traditional tobacco cigarettes cause numerous diseases,” said Thomas J. Mariani, Ph.D., associate professor of Pediatrics, Medicine, and Environmental Medicine at URMC and the study’s lead researcher. “We intend to determine the disease risk associated with nontraditional tobacco-related products, like e-cigarettes.”

Since the early days of Kodak, Xerox, and Bausch & Lomb, Rochester-area innovators have been making astounding discoveries in optics and imaging. Researchers at the University of Rochester are beginning a major study that will add to the region’s imaging expertise, while also advancing global understanding of how the body’s immune system works.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a five-year, $9 million Research Program Project Grant (PO1) to scientists in the School of Medicine and Dentistry to adapt and develop cutting-edge imaging techniques, allowing them to view the immune system while it is fighting infection and disease.

University of Rochester Medical Center researchers have won a $3 million grant to support influenza research. The award from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is going to support ongoing research by New York Influenza Center of Excellence, a 7-year-old flu research center led by URMC scientists John Treanor M.D. and David Topham, Ph.D..

This award is an acknowledgement of the highly productive contributions our center has made to the overall understanding of how the immune response to flu is regulated, Treanor said.

Exposure to cigarette smoke is known to cause changes in the chromatin -- the complex of DNA and proteins that make up a cell's nucleus. This can lead to chronic lung disease. UR researchers Irfan Rahman, Professor of Environmental Medicine and Pulmonary Diseases, and Alan Friedman, Assistant Professor of Environmental Medicine, are shedding light on the role of histones in this process. Histones are key proteins that pass along genetic information from parents to children, play a role in gene expression, and act as spools for DNA to wind around.

Their study, featured on the cover of the Journal of Proteome Research (February 2014), reports that cigarette smoke induces specific post translational modifications in histones H3 and H4, which could serve as biomarkers to help identify and predict chronic lung diseases (COPD and lung cancer) induced by cigarette smoke. Their data may also help in our understanding of the epigenetic changes that occur during the development of these diseases.