In Tesar’s own lab, he and his team have already made discoveries about glial cells leading to groundbreaking advancements in treatments for neurologic diseases. For example, their research has ...

Moving up the tree of life. For the study, the team used CRISPR to engineer nematodes with disrupted cilia or altered glial ...

“Overall, our study provides a proof-of-principle that human glia can be reprogrammed to cells that are capable of making new neurons,” said Thomas Reh, PhD, University of Washington.

The team chose to study glia, dendrites, and cilia in the nematode C. elegans, a model organism cherished by basic researchers for its straightforward genetics and well-studied biology.

Enhancing glucose uptake in specific glial cells significantly reduced these harmful effects, highlighting a potential new therapeutic direction for slowing neurodegenerative processes.

But in the past decade, researchers have come to understand that glial cells do so much more. They communicate with neurons. They work closely with the immune system. And they even play an important ...

Glia, once thought to be mere glue that fills the space between neurons, were largely ignored in the brain for much of the 20th century. Clearly, neurons were the cells that made things happen ...

Glial cells make up about half of the cells in the brain, but the other half of the cells—neurons—typically get the most of our attention for their central role in our thoughts, ...