Subscribe to our Biotechnology News feed
This review article summarizes the structure and stability of all the minichromosomes that Minoru Murata and colleagues at Okayama University have isolated since 2006, and describes their interesting features.
Jun 25th, 2014
Read more
Trillions of bacteria live in the human body, and although there's plenty of evidence that these microbes play a collective role in human health, we know very little about the individual bacterial species. Employing the use of a specially designed glass chip with tiny compartments, researchers provide a way to target and grow specific microbes from the gut - a key step in understanding which bacteria are helpful to human health and which are harmful.
Jun 24th, 2014
Read more
Researchers gained new insight into the role of CCL2, a chemokine known to be involved in the immune response, in the enhancement of stem cell pluripotency. In the study, the researchers replaced basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), a critical component of human stem cell culture, with CCL2 and studied its effect.
Jun 24th, 2014
Read more
Supercomputer simulations reveal clusters of a protein linked to cancer warp cell membranes - findings could help design new anticancer drugs.
Jun 23rd, 2014
Read moreVarious genes of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana and of the bacteria Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas fluorescens could be used as early biomarkers of stress due to heavy metals.
Jun 23rd, 2014
Read more
A movement is under way that will fast-forward the design of new plant traits. It takes inspiration from engineering and the software industry, and is being underpinned in Cambridge and Norwich by an initiative called OpenPlant.
Jun 20th, 2014
Read moreResearchers have developed a technique to control populations of the Australian sheep blowfly - a major livestock pest in Australia and New Zealand - by making female flies dependent upon a common antibiotic to survive.
Jun 19th, 2014
Read moreA collaboration between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health will give NIH-funded researchers training to help them evaluate their scientific discoveries for commercial potential, with the aim of accelerating biomedical innovations into applied health technologies.
Jun 18th, 2014
Read more
Stem cells derived from different types of fat express different cell-surface markers.
Jun 18th, 2014
Read more
A new strategy minimizes the cellular contaminants that usually plague the differentiation of pluripotent stem cells.
Jun 18th, 2014
Read moreResearchers identify a muscle-building mechanism that could be important in addressing sarcopenia.
Jun 17th, 2014
Read more
Scientists are a step closer to creating a prophylactic drug that would neutralize the deadly effects of the chemical weapons used in Syria and elsewhere.
Jun 16th, 2014
Read more
The latest version of a bionic pancreas device has been successfully tested in two five-day clinical trials - one in adults, the other in adolescents - that imposed minimal restrictions on patient activities.
Jun 16th, 2014
Read more
The first direct observation of a key molecular transport mechanism in cells challenges previous models of the process.
Jun 13th, 2014
Read moreScientists have identified an important trigger that dictates how cells change their identity and gain specialized functions.
Jun 12th, 2014
Read more
Using a type of human stem cell, researchers say they have created a three-dimensional complement of human retinal tissue in the laboratory, which notably includes functioning photoreceptor cells capable of responding to light, the first step in the process of converting it into visual images.
Jun 12th, 2014
Read more
A new study reveals the existence of information highways that connect and correlate distant sites within a single protein.
Jun 12th, 2014
Read moreA new study investigates the role of cells' alignment in shaping biological tissue.
Jun 11th, 2014
Read more