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DNA Sequencing is Now Improving Faster Than Moore's Law!
Two leading manufacturers of DNA sequencing instruments announce that they would introduce new machines this year capable of sequencing an entire human genome in a single day for a cost of $1,000 per genome.
Gut Bacteria can control Diabetes
Insulin resistance is the harbinger of metabolic syndrome.
Orange sweet potato a hit in Mozambique
Mozambique, like many poor countries, has a high prevalence of vitamin A deficiency, which can erode the immune system and cause blindness. Pregnant woman and young children in low-income countries are often hit the hardest, according to the WHO, and 600,000 children are estimated to die from a lack of vitamin A each year.
Quasi-science prevents an environmentally friendly agriculture and forestry
At the end of this month, the world’s population will reach 7 billions; 1 billion are hungry, and 1 billion more are malnourished. In the next decades, there will be more humans. Limited land and water, costly energy for fertilizer, and climate change will ensure that more of them are hungry. Science and technology can contribute greatly to the solution. Why then is Europe regulating one part of the solution- GM (genetically modified) crops- as if they are a hazard?
Gamers help protein 3D structure modeling
One of the goals of computational biology is to predict the complete high-order structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence. Often reasonably good structures can be produced by modeling a new protein according to an already-known structure of a homologous protein, one with a similar sequence and presumably a similar structure. However, these structures can be inaccurate, and obviously this method will not work if no homologous structure is known.
RNA as an assembly line
Delebecque and coworkers describe in Science the design and construction of self-assembling RNA scaffolds that spatially organize enzymes in bacterial cells.
Farewell Symposium for Andreas Engel
Andreas Engel, Professor for Structural Biology and former Chairman of the Biozentrum, retired from service to the Biozentrum and became Professor emeritus in October 2010. On February 11th, 2011, the Biozentrum bade farewell to its long standing member and remarkable researcher with a scientific symposium in his honor.
The 3D architecture of the bacterial chromosome
A bacterial chromosome is so long that it must be highly compacted and folded to stand within the cellular space. Genetic studies coupled with fluorescence microscopy showed that it is well organized into isolated domains. These domains also move with order when the chromosome is duplicated and the two new chromosomes are separated each in one half the dividing cell.
LifeExplorer illustrates the front page of Molecular Microbiology
The December 2010 issue contains several papers dedicated to bacterial cell division. The journal cover highlights a 3D model of the bacterial division machinery (the divisome) created with the LifeExplorer tool in collaboration with F.-X. Barre and N. Dubarry.
The eukaryotic ribosome has revealed its structure
Researchers at the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cell Biology (CNRS / University of Strasbourg / Inserm) have determined the first atomic structure of an eukaryotic ribosome (yeast ribosome).
Bacteria self-assemble in a composite material for civil engineering
Researchers have designed bacteria that can produce a special glue to knit together cracks in concrete structures.
DNA as an assembly line
The Slovenia team won the IGEM 2010 competition.
Science brought to life with virtual reality
River Valley High School is a leading public school which attracts the top ten per cent of students in Singapore. The school is the first campus in Singapore to have a Virtual Reality Laboratory and has reported significant success in helping students understand concepts better.
Lost letters from DNA pioneers reveal conflicts and tensions
Almost 50 years after they won the Nobel Prize for defining the structure of DNA, Maurice Wilkins, James Watson, and Francis Crick are in the news again.
Disparition de Georges CHARPAK
C'est avec tristesse que nous avons appris le décès du physicien Georges Charpak survenu le 29 septembre 2010.
GM mosquitoes could help control malaria
About 3.3 billion people in 109 countries are under threat of malaria infection. The disease kills one million people each year, most of them children in Sub-Saharan Africa, and it can cut a country's financial growth by a significant amount. In the face of increasing insecticide and drug resistance and the lack of an effective vaccine, we need to explore new ways of tackling this devastating disease. Mosquitoes that are genetically engineered to be resistant to malaria and deployed in high-risk areas would provide a valuable tool for controlling the disease in Africa.
Do-it-yourself biology
There was a time when only scientists used computers. Now systems that are thousands of times more powerful are available to nearly everyone. Bio-technology could follow the same course.
Letter to UC Faculty on Nature Publishing Group Subscription Increases
A letter dated June 4, 2010 describing exorbitant subscription increases on the part of the Nature Publishing Group (NPG) for the 67 journals UC licenses (including Nature) was distributed to UC faculty by campus librarians.
Birth of the first synthetic cell
Craig Venter's team at the J. Craig Venter Institute reports they have synthetized a bacterial chromosome and transferred it into a bacterium, where it replaced the native DNA. Powered by the synthetic genome, the microbial cell began replicating and making a new set of proteins.
