To carry out their functions, proteins must first fold into particular structures. How rapidly this process can occur has been both a source of debate and a roadblock to comparing protein folding theory and experiment.
Now, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have observed a protein that hit a speed limit when folding into its native state.
“Some of our proteins were folding as fast as they possibly could — in only one or two microseconds,” said Martin G
May explain life extension via calorie restriction
Researchers at Harvard Medical School (HMS) have discovered that a gene in yeast is a key regulator of lifespan. The gene, PNC1, is the first that has been shown to respond specifically to environmental factors known to affect lifespan in many organisms. A team led by David Sinclair, assistant professor of pathology at HMS, found that PNC1 is required for the lifespan extension that yeast experience under calorie restriction. A yeast
Duke University Medical Center biochemists have developed a computational method to design proteins that can specifically detect a wide array of chemicals from TNT to brain chemicals involved in neurological disorders. In a paper in the May 8, 2003, issue of the journal Nature, they demonstrate the breadth of their design method, and also that such sensor proteins can be re-incorporated into cells to activate cellular signaling and genetic pathways.
The researchers said their achievement c
For nine months before birth, infants soak in a watery, urine-filled environment. Just hours after birth, however, they have near-perfect skin. How is it that nature enables infants to develop ideal skin in such seemingly unsuitable surroundings?
A new study by researchers at the Skin Sciences Institute of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center shows that the answer may be vernix — the white, cheesy substance that coats infants for weeks before they are born, then is wiped off and d
Scientists at the University of Sheffield have cast doubt on the validity of the controversial theory of biological cold fusion, the principle sometimes used to lend credence to the practice of selling silicon tablets to strengthen bones, on the assumption that the body will turn the silicon into calcium.
Biological cold fusion, also known as the ‘Kervran effect’, is the principle that living organisms can act as alchemists and turn one element into another. The French Scientist, Louis C. Ke
The Genetic and Microbiological research group at the Navarre Public University is working with the Agruset company from Rioja in the production of new commercial varieties of the fungus oreille de chardon mushroom (Pleurotus eryngii). The same group has developed 150 new varieties of the oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus), which enhances the productivity and quality of the varieties of this fungus which are currently being commercialised.
Mushroom agreeable to the palate
In photographs, it looks like a big red spaceship cruising the ocean depths. But it’s actually a new species of jelly that was discovered and described by scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. MBARI scientists published their research on this unusual animal in a recent online version of the journal Marine Biology.
With a bell diameter of up to a meter wide, the new jelly, named Tiburonia granrojo or “big red,” would seem tough to miss, except that it lives deep below t
In studies that could be vital to an expanding field of industrial biotechnology, scientists at the Center for Biosystems Research are learning to censor what E.coli bacteria are ’talking’ about.
Cell-to-cell cross talking by laboratory E. coli strains engineered to produce antibiotics, industrial polymers or other products in fermentation vessels can lead to stress in the culture and severely limit product output. But scientists with CBR and partners have begun to decipher and over
Protein plays role in inherited cancer syndrome, may be key to other tumors
A research team based at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has identified a key cellular function of a protein known to be involved in the rare genetic disorder neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2). The protein, called merlin, plays a key role in cell-to-cell communication and may be involved in other types of cancer. The discovery also may support the theory that some tumors are destined to spread or metastasize
One key to platelet integrin receptor found in transmembrane region
Integrin receptors allow cells to attach to other cells and to connective tissue which is necessary to form tissues, organs, or even people, for that matter. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have demonstrated that a key to activating αIIbβ3, the integrin that allows platelets to form blood clots, can be found in the part of the molecule embedded within a platelet’s outer
Results from Model-based functional genomics research provides new insight on the pathogenetic mechanism which causes diseases such as ALS
Ingenium Pharmaceuticals AG and a coalition of international research organizations announced today the publication in Science of research describing a fundamental discovery about the genetic and molecular basis for Motor Neuron Disease (MND), which includes Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). The research explains a key pathogenetic mechanism of
In the fall of 1952, Stanley Miller, now a chemistry professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), began simulating primitive earthly conditions in an experiment that produced the basic building blocks of life. When he published the results in Science on May 15 the following year, he kick-started research on the origin of life and transformed modern thinking on a dormant area of science.
Jeffrey Bada, a professor of marine chemistry at Scripps Institution of Oceanogr
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have created the first mammalian gametes grown in vitro directly from embryonic stem cells. The work, in which mouse stem cells placed in Petri dishes — without any special growth or transcription factors — grew into oocytes and then into embryos, will be reported this week on the web site of the journal Science.
The results demonstrate that even outside the body embryonic stem cells remain totipotent, or capable of generating any of the body&
ONR-sponsored Bonnie Bassler looks at bacterial communication
She thinks they’re everywhere. What’s more, she thinks they talk to each other.
But don’t snicker…ONR-sponsored Bonnie Bassler won a MacArthur Foundation ’genius award’ last year for her research on how some of the most deadly microbes we know – cholera, plague, TB, just to mention a few – communicate surprisingly well.
In her Princeton Lab, Bassler (and the rest of the microbiology community) calls it ’quor
Two papers in the May 1 issue of Genes & Development reveal unexpectedly widespread genomic binding by the Myc protein – prompting scientists to consider that this highly studied human oncogene may still have a few secrets to reveal.
Independent research groups led by Drs. Robert Eisenman (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center) and Bruno Amati (European Institute of Oncology) report on the first genome-wide analyses of in vivo Myc targets in the Drosophila and human genomes, respectively. As the my
As a fiber, spider silk is so desirable that scientists have spent decades trying to find a way to mimic it. A team at MIT has been tackling the problem from two directions.
“The main goal is to be able to reproduce the enormous energy absorption and strength-bearing properties of spider silk,” said Paula T. Hammond, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering. “[We want] to be able to obtain a material in large quantities and cheaply … without DNA techniques, which a
Feedback
