Funding Helps Expand Arsenic Awareness Program
Long-term exposure to arsenic can lead to a host of health issues, including heart disease; cancer of the bladder, lung, liver, prostate, and skin; diabetes, and more.
Continue ReadingThe Maine INBRE in its 22nd Year – Looking Back and Ahead
Guest post by James A. Coffman, Director, Maine IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence
Continue ReadingTake a Closer Look: Microscopy at MDIBL
While scientific images are often stunning from an artistic point of view, for the scientists, the beauty of the image is most often contained in the answers it can give them. Frédéric Bonnet,Ph.D., manager of MDI Biological Laboratory’s Light Microscopy Facility (LMF) strives to make sure that users have up-to-date training to make sure they can obtain information that is beneficial to their research.
Continue ReadingMDI Biological Laboratory Gets Children Involved Through Citizen Science
So far, schools in the program have collected 1,200 samples and 15% of them have had higher than recommended levels of arsenic (the Environmental Protection Agency’s safety level is 10 parts per billion). “All About Arsenic” aims to build scientific literacy and interest, and to show school-aged children that as citizen scientists they can...
Continue ReadingHow the Loathsome Fruit Fly Is Contributing to Important Wound Healing Research
This guest post is by Diane Atwood whose popular blog, "Catching Health with Diane Atwood," is carried by the Bangor Daily News and other media outlets. Read other "Catching Health" posts.
Continue ReadingSea Urchin Regeneration May Help Us Understand Aging
This guest post from "Biomedical Beat," the blog of the National Institute for General Medical Sciences, describes research by a team led by Andrea Bodnar, Ph.D., of the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences and including James A. Coffman, Ph.D., of the MDI Biological Laboratory on the fountain-of-youth characteristics of sea urchins and what they can tell us about human aging.
Continue ReadingZebrafish May Hold the Answer to Why Early-Life Stress Can Make You Sick When You’re an Adult
In her "Catching Health" blog, freelance health and wellness writer Diane Atwood discusses research by MDI Biological Laboratory scientist James A. Coffman, Ph.D., on how exposure to stress early in life can lead to adult disease.
Continue ReadingCool Videos: Regenerating Nerve Fibers
If you enjoy action movies, you can probably think of a superhero—maybe Wolverine?—who can lose a limb in battle, yet grow it right back and keep on going. But could regenerating a lost limb ever happen in real life? In this guest post, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, discusses the how scientists including Sandra Rieger, Ph.D., of the MDI Biological Laboratory are striving to understand how other organisms do this.
Continue ReadingCOBRE Program Garners Accolades from the National Institutes of Health
The role of the MDI Biological Laboratory’s COBRE program in building successful scientific careers for junior researchers and enabling major new research endeavors was recently commended by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) in a request for funding to the U.S. Congress.
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