Flexible snake armour
Biology could inspire systems in engineering with minimized abrasion.
Aug 15th, 2012
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Biotechnology News – Latest Headlines
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Success of engineered tissue depends on where it's grown (w/video)
Cells grown on different types of scaffolds vary in their ability to help repair damaged blood vessels.
Aug 15th, 2012
Read moreMolecular biology: The rules of interaction
Gene regulatory proteins may be more flexible in their DNA binding preferences than previously expected.
Aug 15th, 2012
Read moreAn artificial retina with the capacity to restore normal vision
For the first time, researchers decipher the retina's neural code for brain communication to create novel, more effective prosthetic retinal device for blindness.
Aug 14th, 2012
Read moreLaunching a 'social networking war' against cancer
Experts agree that, more than ever before, modern wars will be fought in the cyber zone, targeting an enemy's communications technology to cause untold damage. Now a Tel Aviv University researcher is suggesting that the same tactics should be employed in the battle against one of the body's deadliest enemies - cancer.
Aug 14th, 2012
Read moreHuman embryos frozen for 18 years yield viable stem cells suitable for biomedical research
Even after being frozen for 18 years, human embryos can be thawed, grown in the laboratory, and successfully induced to produce human embryonic stem cells, which represent a valuable resource for drug screening and medical research.
Aug 13th, 2012
Read moreTeam develops new method for sequencing dark matter of life from a single cell
An international team of researchers led by computer scientist Pavel Pevzner, from the University of California, San Diego, have developed a new algorithm to sequence organisms' genomes from a single cell faster and more accurately.
Aug 10th, 2012
Read moreComputer models calculate systems-wide costs of gene expression
Bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego have developed a method of modeling, simultaneously, an organism's metabolism and its underlying gene expression. In the emerging field of systems biology, scientists model cellular behavior in order to understand how processes such as metabolism and gene expression relate to one another and bring about certain characteristics in the larger organism.
Aug 8th, 2012
Read moreUsing millions of years of cell evolution in the fight against cancer
Georgia Tech researchers are focusing on ways to fight cancer by attacking defective genes before they are able to make proteins. John McDonald is studying micro RNAs (miRNAs), a class of small RNAs that interact with messenger RNAs (mRNAs) that have been linked to a number of diseases, including cancer. McDonald's lab placed two different miRNAs (MiR-7 and MiR-128) into ovarian cancer cells and watched how they affected the gene system.
Aug 7th, 2012
Read moreFirst DNA design guides available for GenoCon2 contest
Manuals for designing a synthetic promoter using the DNA CAD environment for Challenge A, as well as pointers for designing DNA sequences to introduce plant functions for Challenge B are now available from the GenoCon website.
Aug 7th, 2012
Read moreNew technology eliminates plant toxins
A team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen have developed a method to hinder unwanted toxins from entering the edible parts of plants such as the oilseed rape, which will make it suitable for animal feed.
Aug 5th, 2012
Read moreResearchers build a toolbox for synthetic biology
Engineers design new proteins that can help control novel genetic circuits in cells.
Aug 3rd, 2012
Read moreResearchers identify a novel double-stranded DNA structure
Researchers' findings address a scientific debate that had lasted for 16 years over the existence of a double-stranded DNA structure.
Aug 3rd, 2012
Read moreGetting to the root - unearthing the plant-microbe quid pro quo
The microbial community or microbiome that inhabits the rhizosphere and endosphere - the niches immediately surrounding and inside a plant's root?facilitates the shuttling of nutrients and information into and out of the roots within the soil matrix. These underground microbial activities have not received as much attention as the effort to characterize the role of the microbial populations inside and on the surfaces of humans, but this is now changing owing to a recent publication.
Aug 1st, 2012
Read moreMassive data for miniscule communities
It's relatively easy to collect massive amounts of data on microbes. But the files are so large that it takes days to simply transmit them to other researchers and months to analyze once they are received. Researchers at Michigan State University have developed a new computational technique that relieves the logjam that these 'big data' issues create.
Aug 1st, 2012
Read moreMore code cracking
Three related studies help uncover the rules governing gene transcription.
Aug 1st, 2012
Read moreRoots and microbes: Bringing a complex underground ecology into the lab
Beneath the surface of the earth, an influential community of microbes mingles with plant roots. In the first large-scale analysis of those communities, scientists have now catalogued and compared the hundreds of types of bacteria that associate with the roots of the model plant Arabidopsis under various conditions.
Aug 1st, 2012
Read moreNSF awards $1 million to improve the efficiency of DNA fabrication
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a three-year $999,531 grant to Virginia Tech to optimize the laboratory processes used to make custom DNA molecules with the tools and methods of industrial engineering.
Jul 26th, 2012
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