Enlisting carbon nanotubes to unmask nerve agents
...owed from the nervous system-the same enzymes that act as catalysts in neurotransmitters. The 500-nanometer-thick tubes and their bound enzymes finely pepper a 2-by-4 millimeter sensor surface. In the presence of OP, enzyme activity is dampened. The nanotubes, acting as electrodes, sense the inhibition a...St. Jude shows how disorderliness in some proteins lets them interact with a diversity of molecules
... of the complex. In this way, proteins such as p27 act as molecular 'staples' that fasten onto their targets. "The very act of binding to the Cdk2-cyclin A complex makes the loose, disordered arms of p27 fold up and become r...Combination therapy drives cancer into remission
...umor. Because most traditional chemotherapy agents act by triggering programmed cell death, such agents are frequently ineffective against tumors that lack a functional programmed cell death mechanism. Such tumors are said to be chemotherapy-resistant. The evasion of treatment-induced programmed cell dea...'Protein-only' prions confirmed in FSU yeast study
...s. The team found that these all-protein particles act like genes in transferring life-changing informati...hat his "protein-only" theory -- that prions could act as agents of heredity all on their own without the benefit of DNA -- would hold up. "Prusiner had...Memories are harder to forget than currently thought
...red." "Current theories of memory state that the act of remembering turns a stored memory into somethin...y and a co-author of the study. "We show that the act of retrieving an old memory and then putting it back into storage is a different process than creati......hat helps researchers because "genes usually don't act alone. Each step in embryo development involves more than one gene being turned on." When two or three genes are active in one tissue or cell, the fluorescent colors overlap to form other colors. When genes labeled red and green overlap, the im...Toxin combo common in fish appears capable of impairing motor skills
...atory studies had suggested that the two chemicals act together to impair nervous system function. A stud...ve independent mechanisms of toxicity or they each act by means of the same mechanism but with greater impact together. In addition to Schantz a...Pacific leatherback turtle could go extinct in 10 years
...the International Sea Turtle Society. "Sea turtles act as our warning mechanism for the health of the ocean, and what they're telling us is quite alarming. Their plummeting numbers are, unfortunately, symptomatic of the ocean as a whole." Although the leatherback may be the world's best-known sea turtle,...New genomics tool boosts diabetes research
...eins that bind to specific areas of the genome and act to switch genes on and off. To discover how a spec...tify the sets of genes where transcription factors act as switches and to learn how defects in these switches might cause disease". In October 2002, a team...Protein inhibits cell growth, may contribute to breast cancer
... known as histone deacetylase inhibitors, may also act on p130. The researchers are now studying the effect that one of these drugs, suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA), has on cdk6. "These data place cdk6 as a major regulator of breast epithelial growth," said Dr. Gelfand, Chairman of Pediatrics at N...New systems biology center positions UT Southwestern in vanguard of scientific research
...ut we still don't understand how the group of them act together to produce this electrical response to light," Dr. Ranganathan said. "To get that, and ultimately to better understand how vision works, we have to develop some way to study the aggregate behavior of these 50 to 100 proteins." Dr. Ranganatha......niversity of Michigan. "We caught evolution in the act of making a big step." This big step also turns out to be a new way of making molecular bolts called disulfide bonds, which are of particular interest to the biotechnology industry. Disulfide bonds are stiffening struts in proteins that also help t...Genetics, alcohol sensitivity, and behavior
...in activity; or modulatory, which means they don't act directly on brain activity but rather influence other neurotransmitters. Dopamine has been classified as both an excitatory and a modulatory neurotransmitter, which means that it tends to increase brain activity, especially when related to pleasure ...Nanoparticle probes are destined for major new role in medical diagnostics and drug delivery
...e ability to emit light in different colors and to act as fluorescent tags. This makes them highly suitable as contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET) or as fluorescent tracers in optical microscopy. They also may be useful as structural scaffold in tiss...International science team tracks ocean predators around the globe
...ata, such as water temperature, tagged animals can act as "autonomous ocean sensors," going places and collecting data that would be costly and difficult for humans to obtain. "Northern elephant seals swim from northern California to Alaska's Aleutian Islands in about six months," Costa explained. "And e...Immune system's attack dogs kept on genetic leash
...not busy battling invaders, some of the cells that act as the attack dogs of the mouse immune system have to be kept on a genetic leash to prevent them from mounting inappropriate attacks on the mouse's own tissues, researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found. The f...Mind Science Foundation announces Rare Consciousness Research Awards
...future grants, Dial comments, "We will continue to act as an incubator of leading-edge consciousness research with private invitation grants in the $15,000 - $30,000 range. This initial round of funding is the most difficult for researchers to find. It will help them develop crucial pilot data with which...It's a stirring tale of bacteria
...s is like a large group of people who, by the very act of swimming in a pool, get carried around by the m...mming created," said Goldstein. Bacteria sometimes act in concert once a certain number of them are massed in one place. They may detect each other's prese...The scoop on poop: Insect feces, dead leaves may provide clues to health of world
... exhaust and aerosol," said Kaspari. "Rainforests act as carbon dioxide scrubbers, taking it out of the air. Rainforest plants can't thrive, if the nutrients aren't being released back into the soil from decomposition." "To keep global climate stable, the rainforests have to be healthy, " said Lowman. ...Researchers adapt RNA interference to study gene function on a large scale
...hway and an RNA interference screen for genes that act in that pathway. This correlation would allow you to match the compounds with the proteins they affect in a much more useful way." Similarly, said Perrimon, researchers can use RNAi to selectively target genes in pathogenic bacteria, to determine whi...