Life Sciences and Chemistry

Microscopic scaffolding to house the tiny components of nanotech devices could be built from RNA, the same substance that shuttles messages around a cell’s nucleus, reports a Purdue University research group.

By encouraging ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules to self-assemble into 3-D shapes resembling spirals, triangles, rods and hairpins, the group has found what could be a method of constructing lattices on which to build complex microscopic machines. From such RNA blocks, the g

To study the structure of the nucleus of the atom, DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility develops and employs a wide range of cutting-edge detector technologies. Now, Jefferson Lab scientists have used their expertise to build a small animal medical imager that’s helping researchers develop a new gene therapy technique for cystic fibrosis.

“Our core expertise is instruments. Once you have instruments with different imaging capabilities, you want to spin-off that tech

As British scientists are given the go-ahead to clone human embryos, two Kingston University researchers have linked up with NASA in the first ever collaboration on space medicine between the United Kingdom and the United States. The $US1 million project aims to explore ways to protect astronauts from space radiation in preparation for a manned mission to Mars in 2020. Dr Colin McGuckin and Dr Nico Forraz, from the University’s School of Life Sciences, will fly out to NASA’s Johnson Space Centr

Recovery, purification of therapeutic proteins an economic and scientific challenge

The economics of producing biopharmaceuticals from transgenic plants such as tobacco is still a roadblock to producing large quantities of urgently needed medicines, especially for people in underdeveloped nations. Chenming (Mike) Zhang is testing a variety of ways to economically recover recombinant proteins from transgenic tobacco using different protein separation techniques.

Zhang, an a

Finnish company Jurilab has announced the completion of a genome-wide scan in Acute Myocardial Infarction in the East Finland Founder Population. The study gives invaluable insight into the interplay of different genes and pathways leading to coronary disease. The study has re-affirmed the majority of genes previously known to be associated with AMI. The new genes discovered include also ones, which appear to give humans a strong protection against coronary disease.

“These discov

Telomere crisis is an important early event in the development of breast cancer, and its occurrence can be identified with precision, according to recent findings by a team of scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at San Francisco. Their report is now available through advance online publication of Nature Genetics.

Joe Gray, director of Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division and a professor of laboratory medicin