With the National Institutes of Health announcing recently that the genome of the skate is going to be sequenced, the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory is poised to play an important role in this large-scale project.

The decision to fund the sequencing of the skate was in response to a proposal submitted by MDIBL, the Genome Sequencing Center of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Benaroya Institute in Seattle. Approval came from the National Hu

Networks are everywhere. Trying to catch connecting flights as we shuttle from one airport to the next can make distances between cities seem even greater than they are. Discovering that you are sitting next to a friend of a friend on one of those flights (social contact networks) can make the world seem a much smaller place. Diverse networks, from airports to social interactions to genes and proteins, often have surprisingly similar structure. In all of these networks, some nodes are highly con

In a first, Carnegie Mellon University scientists have “programmed” cells to make their own contrast agents, enabling unprecedented high-resolution, deep-tissue imaging of gene expression. The results, appearing in the April issue of Nature Medicine, hold considerable promise for conducting preclinical studies in the emerging field of molecular therapeutics and for monitoring the delivery of therapeutic genes in patients.

“For 20 years it has been the chemist’s job to develop agents that

A complete picture of Foot-and-Mouth Disease’s key replication enzyme could lead to the development of new drugs to control the disease without recourse to vaccination or slaughter, scientists report today.

By solving the structure of the Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus (FMDV) enzyme named ’3C protease’ scientists have taken an essential step towards developing protease inhibitors, a class of anti-viral drug that has proved hugely successful in controlling HIV.

Findings may yield methods for improving fertility as well as developing male contraceptives

For 40 percent of the estimated six million American couples battling infertility, the problem lies with the man. But help may be on the way. New research in mice by scientists at Rockefeller University and the Population Council sheds light on the causes behind male infertility. The findings, reported in the March issue of Developmental Cell, also include potential targets for developing a

Parents know all too well the pain experienced by their children – and themselves – when the time comes for immunizations at the doctor’s office.

But a new MicroJet injector being developed by bioengineering students at the University of California, Berkeley, may help ease some of that dread by taking the needle – and the pain – out of the equation. The MicroJet uses an electronic actuator that could one day propel vaccinations, insulin or other drugs through the skin of

That seven-day-old bag of spinach in your refrigerator may not make you as strong as your grandma told you, because, according to Penn State food scientists, spinach stored for a long time loses much of its nutrient content.

Luke LaBorde, associate professor of food science, and Srilatha Pandrangi, graduate student, both at Penn State, found that spinach stored at 39 degrees Fahrenheit loses its folate and carotenoid content at a slower rate than spinach stored at 50 and 68 degree

A new interactive multi-media self-help package for people diagnosed with eating disorders developed by a medical researcher at the University of Glasgow is now set to be delivered over the internet to adolescent sufferers.

The package, initially developed as a CD-ROM cognitive-behavioural self-help tool for the treatment of the eating disorder bulimia nervosa (BN), is set to revolutionise therapy. Bulimia nervosa is a common and disabling condition with significant personal, s

Since Saturday, 19 March, the study entitled Women International Space Simulation for Exploration (WISE) has been fully under way. All participants in the first of two campaigns have been lying in bed, tilted head down at an angle of 6º below horizontal, so that their heads are slightly lower than their feet.

This position results in physiological changes that also occur in astronauts during space flight. The study will assess the roles of nutrition and combined physical exe

Scientists at the University of Liverpool, supported by the British Heart Foundation, are studying blood flow in the brain to further medical understanding of cardiovascular disease.

Dr John Quayle and Dr Tomoko Kamishima, from the University’s Department of Human Anatomy and Cell Biology, are investigating why blood supply to the brain becomes inadequate during serious illnesses, such as strokes. Approximately one in eight people are diagnosed with a disease of the heart or circ

Efficient, effective and reliable remote healthcare monitoring is a holy grail in medicine but solutions have so far proved elusive. But it took a step closer to reality with the successful conclusion of pilot tests under the E-Care project.

The project developed a comprehensive monitoring system to capture, transmit and distribute vital health data to doctors, carers and family. Pilot tests of the system indicate that doctors, nurses, patients and their families found E-Care rel

In a first article, Loeys et al describe a new aortic aneurysm syndrome characterized by the main triad of hypertelorism, bifid uvula and/or cleft palate and aortic aneurysms with arterial tortuosity. This new entity also presents with alterations of the skeletal, craniofacial, neurocognitve development. Importantly, the nature of the aortic aneurysms seems very aggressive and aneurysms occur throughout the arterial tree. In a collaboration between Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Ghent U

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have discovered how fish have evolved over the last 400 million years to stay motionless at different water depths.

A research team led by Dr Michael Berenbrink, a Comparative Physiologist at the School of Biological Sciences, has revealed how modern fish, such as pike and cod, have developed a way of floating at certain water levels using a gas-filled swimbladder.

Dr Berenbrink investigated the mechanism that allows fishes to ke

Chemists say they have identified a gene that appears to play a key role in the development of type 1 diabetes, also known as insulin-dependent or juvenile diabetes, a disease that affects about one million people in the U.S. and is on the rise worldwide. They described their findings, which they say could lead to new drug interventions and possibly gene therapy, today at the 229th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

In

A protein that normally helps hold the skin intact is also needed by skin cancer cells as they spread to other regions of the body, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered. Identifying this protein’s role opens the door for stopping the spread of this deadly cancer-the second most common cancer type in the United States.

The work, which appears in the March 18 issue of Science, is the first published research implicating the protein, co

Taking a new approach to the painstaking assembly of nanometer-sized machines, a team of scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has successfully used single bacterial cells to make tiny bio-electronic circuits.

The work is important because it has the potential to make building the atomic-scale machines of the nanotechnologist far easier. It also may be the basis for a new class of biological sensors capable of near-instantaneous detection of dangerous biological agents