Visiting Scientist Nishad Jayasundara, Ph.D.: Solving the Riddle of the Mysterious Kidney Ailment Plaguing Farmers Around the World
This is the third in a series of posts describing how collaborations between MDI Biological Laboratory faculty members and visiting scientists are advancing scientific progress.
Continue ReadingChalk Talks Still Going Strong
For over a century, MDI Biological Laboratory has hosted short research visits and sabbaticals for academic and industry scientists. Throughout the summer and fall, our Visiting Scientist program continues to flourish as we welcome a series of researchers whose work dovetails with our own faculty’s. For many of us, no better moment captured the magic of MDIBL’s collaborations than our long running tradition of the popular summer Chalk Talk series.
Continue ReadingMaking a Mouse More Like an Axolotl: How James Godwin’s Discoveries Are Helping Science ‘Pull the Levers of Regeneration’
When it comes to salamanders, observers of the natural world since the time of the ancient Greeks have wondered, Why can they regenerate their limbs and tails while humans cannot?
Continue ReadingResearch by Iain Drummond, Ph.D., Brings Science Closer to Kidney Replacement Tissue
We all know our kidneys are charged with filtering our blood – an astonishing 52 gallons of it a day. But how does that actually happen? It turns out that it’s not unlike what one might imagine.
Continue ReadingNational Kidney Month
March is #NationalKidneyMonth and we’re celebrating MDI Biological Laboratory’s longstanding and close connection to renal physiology, starting with Homer Smith, D. Sc., (1895-1962) the renowned scientist who made many significant contributions to the field – including identifying how the kidney works. He spent a period of his career at MDIBL and his determination and curiosity...
Continue ReadingNew Horizons for the Treatment of Diabetic Complications
Chronic complications of diabetes are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality not only in the western world but worldwide. The metabolic changes caused by diabetes, especially hyperglycemia (high blood sugar levels), can lead over time to damage in the circulation system of the diabetic patient. Subsequent ischemia (inadequate blood supply reaching organs) occurs, as...
Continue ReadingFrom the Bench to the Bedside – A Long Affair with Diabetic Nephropathy
All my life I have been interested in studying the complications of diabetes. Diabetes has two sides: on the one hand it is a metabolic disorder that effects glucose levels, and the metabolism is treated by medications that lower glucose. On the other hand, over time diabetes leads to damaging changes in the vascular bed,...
Continue ReadingNew Tools Enable Cutting Edge Scientific Advances
In addition to new ways of viewing a living cell, we have also invested in new technologies that provide unprecedented ways to characterize all of the different cell types and cell states that are involved in the process of cell development, during the evolution of a disease state, and during regeneration after injury. Known as...
Continue ReadingSeeing Science Fiction Become Reality
As a child growing up in East Millinocket, Maine, Scott MacKenzie was a huge fan of science and science fiction. One of the first magazines he ever subscribed to was Scientific American; one of the first books he ever read was science fiction. Now he can read about the research he has supported as the...
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