University of Texas Southwestern Labs: Where Breakthroughs Happen

For decades, researchers have assumed that women taking oral contraceptives have stable levels of sex hormones over each monthly cycle. However, a new study in the American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism led by Yasin Dhaher, Ph.D., Professor of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation and Orthopaedic Surgery at UT Southwestern Medical Center, shows that the opposite is true.

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center developed nanoparticles that successfully edited the disease-causing gene in the lungs of a mouse model of cystic fibrosis (CF), swapping a mutated form for a healthy one that persisted in stem cells. Their findings, reported in Science, could offer hope for people with CF and other debilitating genetic lung diseases.

Mysterious cells that secrete hormones in the large intestine play a key role in regulating body weight through their relationship with intestinal bacteria, a study led by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers suggests. Their findings, published in Nature Metabolism, could lead to new treatments for obesity and extreme weight loss.

For nearly two decades, how kidney cancer becomes resistant to rapalog drugs has baffled the scientific community. Now a study by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center’s Kidney Cancer Program sheds light.

Two genes working in tandem play a critical role in shaping the identity and behavior of prostate cancer cells and their response to treatment, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report.