Articles
The Lead
Wood-eating Gribbles Could Show How to Convert Waste to Biofuel
June 26, 2024 | Comments
The gribble, a wood-boring marine isopod long has been considered nothing more than a nautical nuisance. Its specialty is boring its way into the wooden hulls of ships, turning seafaring into an even more perilous undertaking. But new research that shows how the gribble digests wood could hold a key to the production of carbon-neutral fuels from waste.
The Collaborative RNA Dream
June 12, 2024 2:28 pm | by Christina Smith | Comments
Yesterday, the RNA Institute at New York’s State University at Albany opened its doors to reveal...
The Fire of Life
June 7, 2024 11:08 am | by Skip Derra | Comments
Forest fires are powerful, highly destructive events that while being life altering also have...
FDA-approved Stem Cell Trial Dramatically Slows ALS
May 30, 2024 1:34 pm | by Cynthia Fox | Comments
For two years, stem cells slowed the progression of Lou Gehrig’s disease, a condition with a two...
HIV Trial to Create New Immune Systems
June 18, 2024 10:05 am | by Cynthia Fox | CommentsPeople living with HIV will be treated with genetically engineered stem cells next month by the team of Nobel Prize-winning immunologist David Baltimore, PhD, Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Biology, California Institute of Technology. The goal: to create, in patients, new immune systems resistant to HIV.
Multi-Parametric Electrophysiological Imaging of the Mammalian Heart in vivo
June 6, 2024 11:05 am | by James Joubert, application scientist, Photometrics | Photometrics | CommentsCardiac arrhythmia is one of the most common diseases encountered in clinical cardiology. High-speed electrophysiological imaging using fluorescent probes has yielded tremendous insights into the basic mechanisms of arrhythmias and the effects of anti-arrhythmic drugs. However, optical mapping, as it is known to the cardiac research community, has remained relegated to the isolated (i.e. explanted) heart.
Crowd-Sourcing the Clones: A New Kind of Peer Review?
May 30, 2024 1:34 pm | by Cynthia Fox | CommentsEditors of PubPeer were used to getting only about 400 unique visits a day to their post-publication peer-review website.“Now we are getting that kind of traffic every 15 minutes,” says a PubPeer editor. This astronomical leap began on May 22, when scientists posting anonymously on the site tweeted the news they had found errors—figure replications—in a recent globally hailed Cell.
Digging Out DNA with Digital PCR
May 23, 2024 10:44 am | by Mike May, PhD | CommentsThe polymerase chain reaction (PCR) plays a leading role in today’s biology. PCR started with an endpoint approach that detected a particular nucleic-acid sequence. Then, real-time PCR provided relative quantification of the sequences. Most recently, digital PCR (dPCR) allowed scientists to absolutely quantify sequences of nucleic acids.
Big Data Unveils Exciting Head and Neck Cancer Targets
May 20, 2024 1:05 pm | by Cynthia Fox | CommentsGenome sequencing of head and neck cancers may quickly—and soon—spur new therapies. There are 20 tumor types being studied by the massive, $100 million Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project. Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is the eighth to be unveiled. The first, glioblastoma, has been cited in a whopping 2000-plus manuscripts.
Successful DNA Sequencing with Ever Smaller Samples
May 9, 2024 1:45 pm | by Cynthia Fox | CommentsDNA sequencing is busting Moore’s Law by getting far cheaper, far faster than expected. But it is also getting far more sensitive. Researchers can sequence DNA samples 25 times smaller than they could a year ago. For whole genome sequencing, in recent months, one group has routinely gone from sequencing as little as one microgram of input to 100 nanograms.
Decoding Cancer Metastasis
May 6, 2024 12:25 pm | by Christina Smith | CommentsCombining two biological approaches, a research team from University of Michigan broke down the molecular signaling that leads to metastasis in prostate and breast cancer tumors. In the laboratory of Dr. Russell Taichman, one half of the lab looks at how very small embryonic-like cells (v-cells) help with tissue regeneration and wound healing, while the other half looks at how tumors metastasize to bone marrow.
Sex at Zero Gravity
May 2, 2024 1:38 pm | by Skip Derra | CommentsIf the long-term goal of humans is, indeed, space exploration and colonization, then there are many survivability questions that need to be answered. Leaving Earth means leaving the friendly confines of a planet on which we have evolved over the eons and to which our bodies have adapted. And it turns out gravity has a role in successful sexual reproduction, at least for plants.
Cell Sorting Based on RNA Detection in Living Cells
May 1, 2024 12:10 pm | by Don Weldon, Yuko Williams, Alex Ko, EMD Millipore Corporation | CommentsIdentifying cell types and sorting cells based on RNA expression levels without any transfection reagents or intrusive sample preparation can improve live cell sorting efficiency, physiological relevance, and post-sorting survival rate. SmartFlare RNA detection probes can detect levels of RNA inside living cells, providing the ability to sort and propagate live cell populations based on gene expression levels.
Leveraging LC/MS
April 25, 2024 11:44 am | by Mike May, PhD | CommentsSeparating samples and then analyzing them often requires liquid chromatography (LC) and mass spectrometry (MS) instrumentation, respectively. To explore the ongoing advances in LC/MS technology, we talked with experts from leading vendors.
The Real Threat of Ricin
April 23, 2024 1:45 pm | by Christina Smith | CommentsMail-based bioterror attacks made headlines last week when traces of ricin, a poison derived from the castor bean and a common by-product of castor oil, was found in letters addressed to President Barack Obama, Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker and Lee County, Miss., Justice Court Judge Sadie Holland, according to reports from the Associated Press.
The Driving Force of Biomimicry
April 22, 2024 11:38 am | by Cynthia Fox | CommentsIt already has its own peer-reviewed journal, its own economic index and its own institute. As Earth Day dawns, it is clear the 15-year-old field of “biomimicry” is robust. Peer-reviewed articles have doubled every two to three years to some 3,000, and there has been a tenfold expansion in biomimicry over 12 years.
Standing Room Only for Big Data
April 19, 2024 11:46 am | by Cynthia Fox | CommentsThe popularity of Big Data projects was highly evident at the April 6-10 American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) meeting, whose theme was “personalizing cancer care through discovery science.” Session after session featuring TCGA was Standing Room Only (SRO). Washington Convention Center attendants struggled to keep up.
Live Cell Imaging Platform for Neural Stem Cell Microenvironment Control
April 17, 2024 11:40 am | by Paul Hung, PhD, Cindy Chen, PhD, Terry Gaige; Andrew Zayac, and Brandon Miller (EMD Millipore) | CommentsNeural stem cells are sensitive to microenvironmental cues, including cell-cell contact, cell-extracellular matrix interaction, nutrient and waste transport, and environmental oxygen composition. How these parameters affect the stem cells’ morphology, proliferation, and differentiation remains an open area for research.
Breaking News: Worldwide, Inner Nerds Run Wild
April 16, 2024 11:40 am | by Cynthia Fox | CommentsIn Uganda, crowds of them gathered curiously outside a grass-thatched hut, surrounded by chickens pecking at grains leaking from malwa pots, to do it. From Kazakhstan to Cape Cod, thousands of closet nerds are sneaking out of house-and-hut each month to drink at one of the world’s 750-plus science cafes, or Café Scientifique.
