Dutch researcher Ferry Winter has developed a heterogeneous catalyst for the production of the industrially important solvent methyl isobutyl ketone. With the new catalyst the production process is more environmentally-friendly. The catalyst consists of hydrotalcite, a naturally-occurring clay.
The catalyst developed by Ferry Winter belongs to a new category of catalysts termed ’activated hydrotalcites’. Hydrotalcite is a clay comprised of a mixture of magnesium and al
Scientists led by Mike Hannon at the University of Birmingham and Miquel Coll at the Spanish Research Council in Barcelona have discovered a new way that drugs can attach themselves to DNA, which is a crucial step forward for researchers who are developing drugs to combat cancer and other diseases.
DNA contains the information which encodes life itself; its double-helical structure was recognised 50 years ago. Scientists soon started designing drugs to target DNA and used them to treat
Johns Hopkins researchers have announced the development of a Web-based, automated computer program that they say greatly simplifies the time-consuming and error-prone process of manually designing artificial pieces of DNA.
The program, called GeneDesign, guides the design of blueprints for DNA segments to the exacting specifications required for studying gene function and genetically engineering cells. The blueprints are then used by companies or other investigators to synt
Researchers have developed a mouse strain in which the abnormal activity of the dopamine machinery in a specific part of the brain causes cognitive and behavioral impairments mimicking those in human schizophrenics.
The achievement is important, because creating an animal model of any schizophrenic characteristics has not been done before. And schizophrenia’s genetic and physiological complexities have seriously hindered efforts to understand the disorder.
Dr.s
A molecule in the brain essential for wakefulness and appetite has been found to play a central role in strengthening the neuron connections that lead to addiction. The discovery of how the neuropeptide orexin works at the molecular level makes it a strong new target for potential drugs to treat addiction, the researchers say.
The discovery by neuroscientists at UCSF’s Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center is being reported February 16 in the journal Neuron.
The research
Synthetic biology experiment turns up a previously unrecognized gene-expression phenomenon
An experiment designed to show how a usually innocuous bacterium regulates the expression of an unnecessary gene for green color has turned up a previously unrecognized phenomenon that could partially explain a feature of bacterial pathogenicity.
In a paper published in the Feb. 16 issue of Nature, researchers at Boston University (BU) and the University of California, San Diego (U
Water. Waste. Energy. This trio of problems is among the greatest challenges to the environmental health of society. Water purification alone is becoming more problematic in the world due to our increasingly reliance on contaminated sources, such as polluted rivers, lakes and groundwater.
“All of these issues are closely interrelated,” says Bruce Rittmann, director of the Center for Environmental Biotechnology in the Biodesign Institute at ASU. “For example, most of the pollutio
Scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a quick and simple way to investigate the sugar coating that surrounds bacteria and plays a role in infection and immunity.
The sugars coating bacteria can change very quickly during the course of an infection, cloaking the bacteria from the immune system of their host. Previous techniques for studying the sugars were too slow to catch these rapid changes.
“There’s a growing recognition of the importance of
Undergraduate is lead author of study in top national journal
In a significant advance for regenerative medicine, researchers at Rice University have discovered a new way to culture adult stem cells from bone marrow such that the cells themselves produce a growth matrix that is rich in important biochemical growth factors.
The research, which appears online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is notable not just because of the science – resear
Of all of the materials that make up our bodies, nothing is more ubiquitous than collagen.
It is the most important structural protein in the body, reinforcing connective tissue, bones and teeth, and forming long, fibrous cables to strengthen tendons. Collagen forms sheets of tissue that support the skin and every internal organ. There is nothing in the body, in fact, that does not depend in some way on collagen.
In medicine, collagen from animals, principally cows, is us
A new paper in the February 15th issue of Genes & Development lends novel insight into the cellular changes that occur in sperm while they reside in the female reproductive tract – providing a new understanding of the molecular genetics of successful fertilization.
It had been believed for decades that spermatozoa are translationally silent. However, Dr. Yael Gur and Haim Breitbart (Bar-Ilan University, Israel) now show that, in fact, protein translation does take place in mammalian
Various forms of human muscular dystrophy result from mutations in genes encoding proteins of the nuclear envelope. A new paper in the February 15th issue of G&D reveals how.
Ten human hereditary laminopathies, including Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy (EDMD), are associated with mutations in the LMNA gene that codes for the nuclear filament proteins, lamins A and C. Dr. Brain Kennedy and colleagues at the University of Washington have used a mouse model of EDMD to elucidate the
DePaoli asparagus offers a higher yield of spears than other varieties of the vegetable
UC Riverside researchers have released a new variety of asparagus that offers a higher yield than previous varieties of the vegetable and boasts an excellent spear quality, marked by a high percentage of marketable spears. Higher yield of marketable spears reduces the impact of high land and labor costs, thereby making the asparagus more profitable without raising consumer prices.
Named
Despite success of molecular genetics that developed efficient methods for educing mitochondrial DNA from fossil bones, anthropologists prefer primary sources as before and keep investigating skulls. Each skull possess multitude of distinctive and well-perceptible signs: these are supplementary and fontanel bones, sutural bones (epactal ossicle), accessory and inconstant orifices, appendices and protuberances.
As peculiarities of the skull structure are genetically determined,
Basal-like breast cancers (BLC) are highly aggressive tumors with a relatively poor prognosis that account for approximately 15% of sporadic human breast cancer. Sporadic BLC share certain characteristics with most of the breast cancers from patients carrying a germline mutation in the BRCA1 breast cancer suppressor gene. Among their similarities, sporadic BLC and BRCA1 cancers do not express the estrogen receptor and do not overproduce HER2 protein. Thus, therapeutics targeting estrogen receptor
Treatment of human cancer is often impeded when cancer cells develop resistance to drugs that are designed to induce a type of programmed cell death called apoptosis. A new study published in the February issue of Cancer Cell identifies compounds and mechanisms that can overcome a specific type of resistance to chemotherapeutic-induced apoptosis. The findings may have application for treatment of cancers that are linked to the human papilloma virus (HPV) oncoprotein E6, such as cervical cance
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