biological molecules

The other is a benzoate molecule which self-assembles into sheet-like nanostructures. These sheets form molecular "bricks", ... In the future, the Bioinspired Soft Matter Unit hopes to construct specific molecules on biological membranes to regulate cell fates. For instance, by building molecules on cell ...

The new research shows that HIV targets and disables a pathway involving a number of biological molecules that are key in blocking viral activity and ... During any viral infection our immune system produces a powerful molecule (Interferon), which 'interferes' with the infection and the replication of viruses.

BIO supports research to advance our understanding of the principles and mechanisms that govern life itself. The research studies of BIO extend across systems that encompass biological molecules, cells, communities, tissues, organs, organisms, populations and ecosystems up to and including, the global ...

The researchers found that a class of molecules called sulfidic anions may have been abundant in Earth's lakes and rivers. They calculate that, around 3.9 billion years ago, erupting volcanoes emitted huge quantities of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, which eventually settled and dissolved in water as ...

“In shallow lakes, we found these molecules would have been an inevitable part of the environment,” says Sukrit Ranjan, a postdoc in MIT's Department ... would have mostly stayed in the atmosphere, as the molecule is relatively insoluble in water, and therefore would not have had regular opportunities to ...

A coupled system of two miniature detectors called nanopores improves detection of biological molecules, including DNA and markers of early disease. ... This process results in each molecule producing a unique signature, without the need for lengthy sample preparation or chemical modification. However ...

We're in an exciting new era of cancer treatment – where biological molecules are allowing us to target tumors and the surrounding host biology in an ... Dr James Allison of MD Anderson Cancer Center identified CTLA-4 as an inhibitory checkpoint molecule, which restricted activated T-cell responses.

Elena Rybak-Akimova, a chemist at Tufts University who studied how activated oxygen molecules drive biological processes, died of cancer this week (March 11) at age 56. “She was a fearless scientist,” Krishna Kumar, the Tufts Chemistry Department Chair, says in a statement. “The community recognized ...

... are broken down during signal transfer, the cell must renew its stock of messenger molecules quickly and efficiently to maintain its signaling networks. ... from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore, now shows that the regeneration of a membrane-bound messenger molecule, ...

To better understand these processes, in which calcium ions interact with biological molecules such as proteins, researchers often use computer simulations. ... Typically, interactions with water molecules work to pull a calcium ion away from the molecule it's trying to bind with, like in a molecular tug of war.

But applications of the method go beyond just imaging biological molecules. Sarah Li from the University of Utah thought it could be useful for optimizing semiconductors or other microscopic-scale electronics. Essentially, this is a fundamentally different way of characterizing things on the smallest scale.

There are various levels of organization in biological molecules. For instance, proteins are composed of amino acid sequences and then they get assembled into different domains. Proteins with different functions and localizations in cells of several different organisms can possess the same domains.

This new molecule, recently described in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, expands the biological applications for nanocarbons, including cancer cell imaging and possibly eradication. Nanographenes, nano-sized carbon molecules, exhibit unique electronic, optical and mechanical ...

Researchers from Queen Mary University of London have developed a 3D bioprinting method that enables the creation of biological structures from cells and molecules that are commonly found in natural tissues. From human skin to ears made from a patient's own cells, 3D bioprinting has changed the landscape of medical ...

Professor Alvaro Mata, from Queen Mary's School of Engineering and Materials Science, said: "The technique opens the possibility to design and create biological scenarios like complex and specific cell environments, which can be used in different fields such as tissue engineering by creating constructs ...

A longstanding mystery in biology is how the millions of molecules bumping around in a cell "find" one another and organize into functional structures. So it was a big surprise in 2008 when participants in the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) Physiology course realized that simple phase separations ...