Ok, so it may *appear* that this post is just an excuse to post a cute hedgehog picture. After all, who could resist that little face? But this is really meant to be a quick shout-out to Stanford developmental biologist Philip Beachy, PhD, who has shown yet again that the signalling protein called hedgehog is critically important during many aspects of development.
In Beachy's latest work, published earlier this week in Nature Cell Biology, he and his colleagues show that the precise control of when and where the hedgehog protein is made dictates the branching of tubules in the adult prostate (you may remember other recent work from Beachy's lab about the role that hedgehog plays in bladder cancer, and what that could mean for patients). The findings of the current research suggest that aberrant hedgehog signalling could play a role in the prostatic hyperplasia, or non-cancerous enlargement of the prostate, which often happens as men age.
Previously: Drug may prevent bladder cancer progression, say Stanford researchers, Cellular culprit identified for invasive bladder cancer, according to Stanford study and Bladder infections – How does your body repair the damage?
Photo by Tiffany Bailey
