For 17 years as an editor, I had the pleasure of reading great manuscripts and the pain of reading poorly presented ones. The first parts of the manuscript that the editor sees are the title, abstract, and cover letter. So, it is essential to devote time and effort to crafting these with both the expert … Read more
Protein kinases are enzymes that add phosphate groups onto specific amino acids on proteins. Most of these enzymes are active within cells. Kinases are often encoded by oncogenes, and aberrant activity of these regulatory enzymes is frequently associated with cancer. Data are emerging that kinases can also be released from cells. These secreted kinases can … Read more
Secreted proteins or the parts of transmembrane proteins that are extracellular can be phosphorylated. DeRita and colleagues reported that the cytosolic tyrosine kinase c-SRC was one of several kinases released from prostate cancer cells in exosomes. Sánchez-Pozo and colleagues identified a cancer-relevant function for extracellular c-SRC: c-SRC functioned outside of cultured cells to regulate the … Read more
The Importance of Precision One of the most common issues I encounter as an editor is the use of imprecise verbs in scientific research. It is possible that the author cannot be more precise, because the experiments have not been done to determine how the change occurred or because the conditions may produce diverse outcomes. … Read more
Researchers commonly refer to the molecular and biochemical events that occur in response to extracellular signals as pathways. There is a tendency to lump a related set of pathways into a general overarching pathway. For example, researchers may refer to the TGF-β pathway or the Wnt pathway. These are no more individual pathways than the … Read more