No longer just for biology, RNA can now be built into 3-D arrays
...es for such applications as drug or gene delivery, gears for nano-equipment, and intricate arrays and chips for diagnostic devices, sensors and electronics." Peixuan Guo "This report demonstrates that RNA can be used to form a variety of artificial shapes and that we can assemble these shapes into arrays ...Pacific Northwest National Lab unveils most complete human blood-plasma proteome map to date
...oteomics program over the past six months, as PNNL gears up to compete for the DOE's multimillion-dollar Whole Proteome Analysis facility. This past summer the FTICR instrumentation developed at PNNL was named one of the 100 top inventions of the year by R&D Magazine , and in October NIH granted PNNL more...Dirty air from Asia can push U.S. air pollution to unhealthy levels
... a high-pressure cell near Hawaii acting like twin gears that propel the air mass. Various forces over the Pacific can affect the altitude at which the pollution enters North America, but eventually it drops low enough, between ground level and 3,500 feet, to have an impact on air quality. In the 2001 eve...... routinely caught and killed or injured in fishing gears aiming to catch other marine life bound for human ...cies by as much as 20 times. In addition, fishing gears inflict damage to corals and other seafloor habitats. "Shifting gears: assessing collateral impacts...'Timeless' gene found to play key role as timekeeper in mammals
... "Without timeless, you are missing a whole set of gears in an intricate mechanism." Other contributors to the paper were postdoctoral researchers Jennifer W. Mitchell and Penny W. Burgoon, both in cell and structural biology, and Jason R. Hickok, a doctoral student in cell and structural biology....Development of hair depends on development of the hair channel
...r; its outer, tough cells are thought to mesh like gears with the hair shaft to produce the familiar shingled look of hair as seen in commercials about hair care products. At the base of the hair follicle lies a storehouse of replacement cells, called matrix cells, capable of transforming into hair channe...Spectrum of West Nile symptoms includes paralysis
ST. PAUL, MN As the nation gears up for another season of West Nile virus, a new study extends the understanding of the clinical spectrum of West Nile symptoms, and points to extreme muscle weakness or paralysis as a significant cause of complications in affected patients. The study...DNA-repair protein functions differently in different organisms
... One is base incision repair -- the cell machinery gears up, cuts out the damaged section of DNA, and rebuilds it. The second uses DNA photolyase. "A Lone Ranger enzyme repairs the damage without all the machinery or a lot of team players." In two steps -- photoactivation and photo repair -- the flavoenzym...Dartmouth Medical School geneticists discover new role for antisense RNA
..., Dunlap and Loros have teased apart the molecular gears that form the basis of most living clocks. Light and dark cycles reset the clocks, they found, the way turning the hands of a clock does. The clock mechanism, a biological oscillator, keeps time through the delicately balanced interplay of the Neur...Scientists urge managers to limit use of destructive fishing gears
...cal impacts associated with all commercial fishing gears used in the United States. Scientists urged manag... agreed that habitat destruction that some fishing gears cause is actually even more ecologically damaging than the harm caused by bycatch. "On land we can...Researchers unwind secrets of biological clocks
... by a trio of genes that function like the turning gears in a wristwatch. The protein in this microscopic t...ture for has an input role, but all three are main gears of the clock) was conducted at Vanderbilt University and Nagoya University in Japan. Researchers at ...Artificial cell gets light-powered nanopump for calcium ions
...onary biology, and get down to the nuts and bolts, gears and wheels of how they work. As we have come to understand them, we can take these things and learn to adapt them for our own human purposes."...New way found to see light through novel protein identified by Dartmouth geneticists
...t works. The novel photoreceptors are part of the gears that drive biological clocks, the cellular timekeepers of the circadian rhythm, which paces life's daily ebb and flow in a 24-hour light-dark cycle. Their identification also opens a window for genetically engineered drug delivery systems that explo...Mutations may yield clues to heartbreaking childhood disease
.... The lab experiences have caused Douglas to shift gears in her academic plans and apply to masters and doctoral programs in biomedical engineering. This has really sparked my interest in going to grad school, she said. Working in a genetics lab has given me a focus. This has been a huge part of my Hopkins...Analysis of impact studies reveals how bottom fishing affects seafloor denizens
Fishing gears used to catch bottom-dwelling fish and shellfish often disturb both the seabed and the organisms living within or on it. The potential impact of this disturbance has become a subject of heated debate because of the widespread use of bottom fishing ge...Researchers pioneer techniques to lubricate microdevices
...miniature motors, pumps, and gears -- mechanisms that could one day move inside microscopic medical implants in the body, for example. Such devices -- microelectromechanical ...Tiny polymer patterns might act as glue in 'biochips'
...ystems. Although they don't have moving parts like gears and levers, as is the popular perception of MEMS, they use micro-fabrication technology to achieve a biological function, namely interactions with cells and genes. MEMS used in biological applications are called bioMEMS. So far, the smallest featur...Molecular switch that inhibits fat cell development found
...entiating into muscle cells spontaneously switched gears and became fat cells instead. "This suggests that active Wnt signaling is required for continued commitment to the myocyte lineage," says MacDougald. Other significant results documented in the Science article include: Of 18 known prote...What makes cells tick detailed by Dartmouth researchers
...oles and interlocking connections of the molecular gears that drive biological clocks and prevent them from winding down. The striking parallels in a relatively simple model offer clues to what makes creatures tick, report the DMS authors -- Jay Dunlap, professor and chair of genetics, Jennifer Loros, prof...Unique study reveals new details on how genes are transcribed
..., as if, Bustamante says, "they exist in different gears corresponding to different functional or dynamic states." It was also observed that RNAP molecules transcribing at a faster rate are less likely to pause than those transcribing at a slower rate. The authors say this suggests there is a "kinetic com...