It is now possible to create complex, custom-designed transmembrane proteins from scratch, scientists report this week. The advance, led by molecular engineers at the University of Washington Institute for Protein Design, will enable researchers to create transmembrane proteins not...
Psychedelic mushrooms likely developed their "magical" properties to trip up fungi-munching insects, suggests new research.
The work helps explain a biological mystery and could open scientific doors to studies of novel treatments for neurological disease, said lead researcher Jason Slot,...
Can we stay young forever, or even recapture lost youth?
Research from the laboratory of Professor Julian Chen in the School of Molecular Sciences at Arizona State University recently uncovered a crucial step in the telomerase enzyme catalytic cycle. This...
Led by researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, a diverse team of neuroscientists and surgeons successfully grafted human neural progenitor cells into rhesus monkeys with spinal cord injuries. The grafts not only survived, but grew...
ETH scientists have been able to prove that a protein structure widespread in nature – the amyloid – is theoretically capable of multiplying itself. This makes it a potential predecessor to molecules that are regarded as the building blocks...
Carbon monoxide can improve the effectiveness of antibiotics, making bacteria more sensitive to antibiotic medication, according to a study led by Georgia State University.
Researchers paired carbon monoxide with the antibiotic metronidazole and found carbon monoxide enhanced the efficacy of the antibiotic...
A new cellular messenger discovered by Weill Cornell Medicine scientists may help reveal how cancer cells co-opt the body's intercellular delivery service to spread to new locations in the body.
In a paper published Feb. 19 in Nature Cell Biology, the...
Modern humans have brains that are more than three times larger than our closest living relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos. Scientists don't agree on when and how this dramatic increase took place, but new analysis of 94 hominin fossils shows...
Using a state-of-the-art type of electron microscopy, an MIT-led team has discovered the structure of an enzyme that is crucial for maintaining an adequate supply of DNA building blocks in human cells.
Their new structure also reveals the likely mechanism...
Researchers from KU Leuven (Belgium) and the universities of Pittsburgh, Stanford, and Penn State (US) have identified fifteen genes that determine our facial features. The findings were published in Nature Genetics.
Our DNA determines what we look like, including our facial...
Multicellular organisms like ourselves depend on a constant flow of information between cells, coordinating their activities in order to proliferate and differentiate. Deciphering the language of intercellular communication has long been a central challenge in biology. Now, Caltech scientists...
