The study found that the gene promotes muscle strength during exercise.
Researchers have discovered a gene that increases muscle strength when activated by exercise, opening the door to the creation of therapeutic treatments that replicate some of the benefits of working out.
The University of Melbourne-led research, which was published in Cell Metabolism, demonstrated how various forms of exercise alter the molecules in our muscles and led to the identification of the new C18ORF25 gene, which is activated by all forms of exercise and is responsible for enhancing muscle strength. Animals lacking C18ORF25 have weaker muscles and worse exercise performance.
Dr. Benjamin Parker, project leader, said that by activating the C18ORF25 gene, the research team could observe muscles grow significantly stronger without necessarily becoming larger.
“Identifying this gene may impact how we manage healthy aging, diseases of muscle atrophy, sports science, and even livestock and meat production. This is because promoting optimal muscle function is one of the best predictors of overall health,” Dr. Parker said.
“We know exercise can prevent and treat chronic diseases including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and many cancers. Now, we hope that by better understanding how different types of exercise elicit these health-promoting effects at the molecular level, the field can work towards making new and improved treatment options available.” READ MORE...
The University of Melbourne is establishing a world-class research lab for de-extinction and marsupial conservation science thanks to a $5 million philanthropic gift.
The gift will be used to establish the Thylacine Integrated Genetic Restoration Research (TIGRR) Lab, led by Professor Andrew Pask, which will develop technologies that could achieve de-extinction of the thylacine (commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger), and provide crucial tools for threatened species conservation.
“Thanks to this generous funding we’re at a turning point where we can develop the technologies to potentially bring back a species from extinction and help safeguard other marsupials on the brink of disappearing,” Professor Pask, from the School of BioSciences at the University of Melbourne said.
“Our research proposes nine key steps to de-extinction of the thylacine. One of our biggest breakthroughs was sequencing the thylacine genome, providing a complete blueprint on how to essentially build a thylacine.”
“The funding will allow our lab to move forward and focus on three key areas: improving our understanding of the thylacine genome; developing techniques to use marsupial stem cells to make an embryo; and then successfully transferring the embryo into a host surrogate uterus, such as a dunnart or Tasmanian devil,” Professor Pask said.
The thylacine, a unique marsupial carnivore also known as the Tasmanian wolf, was once widespread in Australia but was confined to the island of Tasmania by the time Europeans arrived in the 18th century. It was soon hunted to extinction by colonists, with the last known animal dying in captivity in 1936. READ MORE...
Quantum computers could be constructed cheaply and reliably using a new technique perfected by a University of Melbourne-led team that embeds single atoms in silicon wafers, one-by-one, mirroring methods used to build conventional devices, in a process outlined in an Advanced Materials paper.
The new technique – developed by Professor David Jamieson and co-authors from UNSW Sydney, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), Leibniz Institute of Surface Engineering (IOM), and RMIT – can create large scale patterns of counted atoms that are controlled so their quantum states can be manipulated, coupled and read-out.
Lead author of the paper, Professor Jamieson said his team’s vision was to use this technique to build a very, very large-scale quantum device.
“We believe we ultimately could make large-scale machines based on single-atom quantum bits by using our method and taking advantage of the manufacturing techniques that the semiconductor industry has perfected,” Professor Jamieson said.
The technique takes advantage of the precision of the atomic force microscope, which has a sharp cantilever that “touches” the surface of a chip with a positioning accuracy of just half a nanometre, about the same as the spacing between atoms in a silicon crystal.
The team drilled a tiny hole in this cantilever, so that when it was showered with phosphorus atoms one would occasionally drop through the hole and embed in the silicon substrate.
The key was knowing precisely when one atom – and no more than one – had become embedded in the substrate. Then the cantilever could move to the next precise position on the array.
The team discovered that the kinetic energy of the atom as it plows into the silicon crystal and dissipates its energy by friction can be exploited to make a tiny electronic “click.” READ MORE...
