Biology
For two decades, scientists have been pursuing a potential new way to treat bacterial infections, using naturally occurring proteins known as antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). Now, MIT scientists have recorded the first microscopic images showing the deadly effects of AMPs, most of which kill by poking holes in bacterial cell membranes.
| 2 min read
From the spray-on variety to the small sheets of laboratory-grown skin used in burns treatment, the quest to recreate the body's largest organ has made big strides in the 20th century.
| 2 min read
Scientists have claimed that they have developed a new life operating system by altering the genetic code. This could result in the creation of proteins with certain properties which were never seen before.
| 2 min read
Researchers at Tufts University School of Medicine and the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts have developed a new tool for gene therapy that significantly increases gene delivery to cells in the retina compared to other carriers and DNA alone, according to a study published in the January issue of The Journal of Gene Medicine.
| 2 min read
Scientists have found specific genetic variants which may explain why some people age earlier than others and say their findings have important implications for understanding cancer and age-related diseases.
| 2 min read
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists and their colleagues at the Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute today announced that they have completed sequencing the genome of a kind of wild grass that will enable researchers to shed light on the genetics behind hardier varieties of wheat and improved varieties of biofuel crops.
| 2 min read
Dutch scientists have been growing pork in the laboratory since 2006, and while they admit they haven't gotten the texture quite right (the lab-grown meat has the consistency and feel of scallop), they say the technology promises to have widespread implications for our food supply.
| 4 min read
Technology allowing cosmetic makers to test for allergic reactions to their products without controversial animal trials is in the works and could be in use by next year.
| 2 min read
Scientists at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (SFBR) in San Antonio have for the first time developed a highly sensitive means of detecting the seven types of botulinum neurotoxins (BoNTs) simultaneously.
| 2 min read
A growing number of scientists are merging methods and results from different disciplines to extract new meaning from old data, says a team of researchers in a recent issue of Evolution.
| 3 min read
Two scientists from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) are part of an international team that has discovered a genetic mutation that causes Joubert Syndrome. JBTS, as it is commonly called, is a devastating inherited neurological disease that is very rare in the general population but found relatively more often among Ashkenazi Jews.
| 3 min read
A team of scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) has determined a hierarchical set of criteria that explain how the molecular precursors of gene-regulating small RNAs are sorted by the cellular machinery.
| 2 min read
