Life Sciences and Chemistry

“I would like Europe to become a centre of excellence and a focus for pharmaceutical research once again”, stated EU Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin today at the annual assembly of the European pharmaceutical industry (EFPIA) in Bruges. “We need to nurture our research-based industries by reinforcing science and technology in Europe. Europe needs to invest more and in a better, more consistent way: it has to cut red tape and be bold.” From 1999 to 2002 the Commission invested around € 1 billio

According to fellow phycologists, algae expert Stefan Draisma from the Leiden University has turned brown algae phylogeny completely upside down. His research shows that few of the currently assumed relationships between the orders are correct. Furthermore, it transpires that some simple species arose not earlier but later than more complex species.

Brown algae are multicellular algae. Brown pigments mask the green colour of the chlorophyll. Most of the species occur in temperate regions. Th

At the Hubrecht Laboratory in Utrecht, the biologist Sylvia Fischer has discovered how organisms protect themselves against transposons. Transposons are pieces of DNA which can translocate themselves within the genome. Sometimes transposons cause damage to the DNA. Plants probably have a similar mechanism which protects them against viruses.

Biologists from Utrecht discovered that the nematode C. elegans keeps transposons in check with a sophisticated mechanism. Due to the mechanism, the tra

Protein movement can be simulated three times as fast than had been thought possible up to now. Researchers from Groningen achieved the gain in speed by leaving out the calculations concerning hydrogen atoms. Meanwhile research groups around the world are adapting their simulation programs.

Up until now researchers calculated all of the positions of atoms in a protein molecule after two femtoseconds. A femtosecond is one millionth of a billionth of a second. The research from Groningen revea

Primates found in Brazil’s Amazon rain forest

Conservation International announced today the discovery of two new species of titi monkey in Brazil’s Amazon rain forest. The findings are published in a just-released special supplement to the journal Neotropical Primates.

They were described by Marc van Roosmalen, a primatologist at Brazil’s National Institute for Amazon Research (INPA), his son, Tomas van Roosmalen, and Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation Internat

Researchers at the University of Toronto and Mount Sinai Hospital have identified a protein that plays a critical role in the regulation of “natural killers cells” in the immune system’s battle against foreign and diseased cells.

“Our research is a small part of the larger problem of how viruses and diseased cells ravage the body and circumvent our immune system,” says Kathleen Binns, a U of T doctoral student in medical genetics and microbiology and an author on a paper in the June 20