Life Sciences and Chemistry

Technique could ease discovery of countless reactions by linking organic fragments to DNA strands

Scientists have developed a powerful way of mining the chemical universe for new reactions by piggybacking collections of different small organic molecules onto short strands of DNA, which then gives the reactants the opportunity to react by zipping together. Their work draws upon an innovative technique, known as “DNA-templated synthesis,” that uses DNA to code not for RNA or proteins

A team of researchers at the University of Georgia has discovered a new way that genetic entities called transposable elements (TEs) can promote evolutionary change in plants.

The research, published Sept. 30 in the journal Nature, was led by Dr. Susan Wessler, a Distinguished Research Professor of plant biology at UGA. The Wessler lab studies TEs, which are pieces of DNA that make copies of themselves that can then be inserted throughout the genome. The process can be highly effici

A revolutionary approach to angiogenesis[1] by a team of Belgian researchers could make cancer treatment more effective at killing tumours.

Dr. Olivier Feron and his team from the University of Louvain Medical School in Brussels have turned the whole concept of targeting tumour blood vessels on its head. Instead of the conventional approach of trying to starve tumour cells of the blood supply they need to grow, they are doing the opposite – opening up the tumour blood supply to allow

McGill research shows increased carbon dioxide levels decrease algae growth

The doomsayers may be right: our children may not inherit a bountiful and green world. According to researchers at McGill University, we have been overestimating the ability of plants to counteract the greenhouse effect. Their findings, published in the September 30 issue of Nature, suggest changing conditions in the earth’s atmosphere may have more harmful effects on plant life than previously believe

In a whole new approach to asthma research, scientists at Yale have discovered that a molecule called Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) likely plays an important role in the development of the disease and raises the possibility of new asthma drugs that block VEGF receptors and signaling pathways.

VEGF is normally associated with the growth of new blood vessels in the lung and other organs. Yale researchers found, however, that in addition to this function, VEGF can also indu

An experimental cancer vaccine using defanged listeria bacteria is showing great promise in animal studies, successfully treating new cancers that have spread into the lungs of mice.

The mouse study, reported in the Sept. 21 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by scientists at Cerus Corp. in Concord, Calif., employs a genetically engineered listeria bacteria based on a strain created by coauthor and University of California, Berkeley, microbiologist