Life Sciences and Chemistry

Two specific genes involved in cholesterol transport are required for the most common way excess cholesterol is expelled from our bodies, according to scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

The genes, the researchers report, are essential for efficient secretion of cholesterol into the bile, which is the major route that cholesterol exits the body. The discovery sheds new light on potential therapies that could play an important role in reducing high cholesterol, a ma

NSF awards grants to discover the relationships of 1.75 million species One of the most profound ideas to emerge in modern science is Charles Darwin’s concept that all of life, from the smallest microorganism to the largest vertebrate, is connected through genetic relatedness in a vast genealogy. This “Tree of Life” summarizes all we know about biological diversity and underpins much of modern biology, yet many of its branches remain poorly known and unresolved. To help

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and their collaborators have discovered that some viruses can use the most abundant protein in the cells they are infecting to destroy the cells and allow new viruses to escape to infect others. The findings, described in the November 29, 2002, issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, build upon earlier Brookhaven research on how virus particles become infectious (see related story) and may lead to the design of m

The name is Fung. Daniel Y.C. Fung

He may not possess the lethal aggression or magnetism of the fictitious secret agent James Bond, but like Agent 007, Daniel Y.C. Fung is always on a mission of deadly proportions. While Bond’s assignments usually involve international intrigue and saving the world from evil villains, Fung’s life’s work is devoted to saving the world ’s food supply from deadly pathogens and bacteria. And where Ian Fleming’s cool, hard hero ha

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