Articles and reports from the Life Sciences and chemistry area deal with applied and basic research into modern biology, chemistry and human medicine.
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The blood-sucking ticks that spread microbes, causing disease in livestock and people, are very sensitive to the weather. So different sorts of microbes cycle between ticks and their hosts in the UK and in other parts of Europe where the summers are warmer and drier. This has obvious implications for the possible effects of global warming on the spread of vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, Oxford University scientists said today, Monday 29 March 2004, at the Society for General Microbiologys meet
Yet another extraordinary ability of the active ingredient in aspirin, salicylic acid, has just been identified by plant scientists working at the University of Cambridge, researchers heard today, Monday 29 March 2004, at the Society for General Microbiologys meeting in Bath.
“We all recognise its bitter taste and pain-killing abilities, but the importance of the active ingredient of aspirin, called salicylic acid, is even greater”, says Dr John Carr of the Department of Plant Sciences
Viruses, often able to outsmart many of the drugs designed to defeat them, may have met their match, according to new research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The findings show that the introduction of a harmless molecule that uses the same machinery a virus needs to grow may be a potent way to shut down the virus before it infects other cells or becomes resistant to drugs. The results are published in the March issue of the journal, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.
A group of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute, at the University of California in San Diego, and at the Oregon Hearing Research Center and Vollum Institute at Oregon Health & Science University have discovered a key molecule that is part of the machinery that mediates the sense of hearing.
In a paper that will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Nature, the team reports that a protein called cadherin 23 is part of a complex of proteins called “tip links” that are on hair ce
Protein hydrogels can be genetically engineered to promote the growth of specific cells
Johns Hopkins University researchers have created a new class of artificial proteins that can assemble themselves into a gel and encourage the growth of selected cell types. This biomaterial, which can be tailored to send different biological signals to cells, is expected to help scientists who are developing new ways to repair injured or diseased body parts.
“Were trying to give an
Fluorescent nanoparticles that can be attached to biological molecules are being developed for use in microscopic sensor devices. Philip Costanzo, a graduate student in chemistry at UC Davis, and Timothy Patten, associate professor of chemistry, have prepared nanoparticles of cadmium sulphide and silicon dioxide coated with polymer chains with biotin attached to the ends. When avidin, a protein that binds to biotin, is added, the nanoparticles cluster into larger aggregates. The researchers used dyna