When William Murphy, an associate professor of biomedical engineering and orthopedics and rehabilitation at University of Wisconsin-Madison works with some of the most powerful tools in biology, his approach is to develop tools that fit together. The structures are similar to socket wrenches...
One of the big mysteries in biology is why cells age. Now scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies report that they have discovered a weakness in a component of brain cells that may explain how the aging process occurs in the brain. The scientists discovered that certain proteins...
Development: How specific cells are generated in the spinal cord How astrocytes, certain cells of the nervous system, are generated was largely unknown up to now. Bochum's researchers have now investigated what influence the cell environment, known as the extracellular matrix, has on this...
How astrocytes, certain cells of the nervous system, are generated was largely unknown up to now. Bochum's researchers have now investigated what influence the cell environment, known as the extracellular matrix, has on this process. They found out that the matrix protein tenascin C has to be...
The most abundant and important molecules in all living organisms are proteins; after all they manage to participate in every single one of life's essential reactions. So it is easy to see why scientists have been making such a fuss trying to learn how to synthesise them in laboratory as this...
A novel antibacterial protein targeted against E. coli O157:H7 may offer a way to prevent or treat serious food-borne bacterial infections, as demonstrated in a study published in the December issue of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. Results in an animal model of E. coli infection showed...
According to investigators at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Centocor R&D, a group of blood proteins can foresee which patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) - a progressive lung disease - are more likely to die within two years or live at least five years. The...
Researchers at IRB Barcelona discover a crucial mechanism controlling the segregation of genetic material from parent to daughter cells. A finely tuned process of degradation tightly regulates CenH3 protein levels to ensure the correct function of the cell division machinery in Drosophila. From...
A person's ability to battle viruses at the cellular level remarkably resembles the way deadly infectious agents called prions misfold and cluster native proteins to cause disease, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report. This study marks the first discovery of so-called "good"...
If one is good, two can sometimes be better. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have certainly found this to be the case when it comes to a small HIV-fighting protein. The protein, called cyanovirin-N (CV-N), is produced by a type of blue-green algae and has gained...
Almost a quarter million people are hospitalized with the flu every year, and an estimated 3,000 to 49,000 die, making the flu one of the chief causes of preventable death in the USA. However, a universal flu vaccine that protects against all strains may be within reach in the next five years...
About 200,000 people are hospitalized with the flu every year, and an estimated 3,000 to 49,000 die, making the flu one of the chief causes of preventable death in the USA. However, a universal flu vaccine that protects against all strains may be within reach in the next five years that will...
A fungus that lives at extremely high temperatures could help understand structures within our own cells. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and Heidelberg University, both in Heidelberg, Germany, were the first to sequence and analyse the genome of a heat-loving...
Researchers at Rice University and Texas A&M have discovered a way to pattern active proteins into bio-friendly fibers. The "eureka" moment came about because somebody forgot to clean up the lab one night. The new work from the Rice lab of biochemist Kathleen Matthews, in collaboration with...
Researchers at Rice University and Texas A&M have discovered a way to pattern active proteins into bio-friendly fibers. The "eureka" moment came about because somebody forgot to clean up the lab one night. The new work from the Rice lab of biochemist Kathleen Matthews, in collaboration with...
An international team of scientists, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, has identified misfolding and other molecular anomalies in a key brain protein associated with autism spectrum disorders...
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Neurodegenerative diseases (i.e. Alzheimer's and Huntington's) often involves the formation of aggregates of proteins in a patients' brain, correlated with the process of degeneration. Some of these proteins are unique to the specific disease and others are commonly found in healthy individuals...
Since the 1990s, a green fluorescent protein known simply as GFP has revolutionized cell biology. Originally found in a Pacific Northwest jellyfish, GFP allows scientists to visualize proteins inside of cells and track them as they go about their business. Two years ago, biologists who...
Since the 1990s, a green fluorescent protein known simply as GFP has revolutionized cell biology. Originally found in a Pacific Northwest jellyfish, GFP allows scientists to visualize proteins inside of cells and track them as they go about their business. Two years ago, biologists who...