What’s hot in science and engineering? Research news for the day of April 12, 2022

Tue, 12 Apr 2022
COVID-19 variants can’t hide from Variabel

Computer scientists develop program to find ‘low-frequency’ variants in sequence data

Details about variants hiding in the deluge of genetic SARS-CoV-2 sequences would be good to know, if only researchers could get to them.

A U.S. National Science Foundation-funded program developed at Rice University will make that possible, at least for “intrahost variants” — variants that appear in genome data from the same COVID-19-positive person.

“This grant enables analyses of …

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Tue, 12 Apr 2022
Study finds mutated protein structure at the root of blood cancers

Structural findings could result in more effective, less toxic treatments

Stanford University researchers working on a project supported in part by a U.S. National Science Foundation grant have determined the structure of a large signaling protein involved in responses to infection, inflammation and immune cell generation. The structure reveals how the protein, Janus kinase, or JAK, transmits signals sent by immune cell growth factors called cytokines.

When the structure of the signaling protein changes because of genetic mutations it can indicate the emergence of blood cancers known as myeloproliferative …

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