Life Sciences and Chemistry

For more than a decade, researchers have been trying to create accurate computer models of Escherichia coli (E. coli), a bacterium that makes headlines for its varied roles in food poisoning, drug manufacture and biological research.

By combining laboratory data with recently completed genetic databases, researchers can craft digital colonies of organisms that mimic, and even predict, some behaviors of living cells to an accuracy of about 75 percent.

Now, NSF-supported researchers

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute report

Professor Richard A. Lerner, M.D., Associate Professor Paul Wentworth, Jr., Ph.D., and a team of investigators at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) is reporting that antibodies can destroy bacteria, playing a hitherto unknown role in immune protection. Furthermore, the team found that when antibodies do this, they appear to produce the reactive gas ozone.

“[Ozone] has never been considered a part of biology before,” say

A research team of the Department of Applied Chemistry of the University of the Basque Country has been studying the reproduction of funguses. In the laboratory of Unai Ugalde, they have studied and identified a molecule that is essential in the growing of fungus.

It is already known that funguses grow in several places, but the factors that affect their growing are still unknown. Funguses grow through hypha, that is, small filamentous. However, in certain situations they produce spores tha

For the first time in the world, researchers at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, along with collaborators at the University of Oxford, Harvard University, and Michigan State University have uncovered two genetically informative molecules from a single fossil bone. In addition to the recovery of mitochondrial DNA, the complete sequencing of a bone protein, osteocalcin, makes this a major scientific breakthrough. Extending this work to additional fossils could change perceptions of evolutiona

Technology offers potential for treatment of cancer and other diseases

UCLA scientists coupled the protein that makes fireflies glow with a device similar to a home video camera to eavesdrop on cellular conversations in living mice. Reported in the Nov. 11 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, their findings may speed development of new drugs for cancer, cardiovascular diseases and neurological diseases.

Led by Dr. Sanjiv Gambhir, UCLA associ

Bacteria in space, beware. New technology to monitor and identify bacteria is in the works.

Dr. George E. Fox and Dr. Richard Willson, researchers on the National Space Biomedical Research Institute’s immunology and infection team, have developed a new technology to characterize unknown bacteria. Its immediate application will be for identifying bacteria in space, but it will eventually aid in diagnosing medical conditions and detecting biological hazards on Earth.

“Underst