20-Feb-2023 How Earth’s molecules got their “handedness” Ohio State University COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists from The Ohio State University have a new theory about how the building blocks of life – the many proteins, carbohydrates, lipids and nucleic acids that compose every organism on Earth – may have evolved to favor a certain kind of molecular structure. Journal ACS Earth and Space Chemistry
13-Feb-2023 Memory formed alongside brain signaling system King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) Evolution of lactate-mediated nerve signaling probably enabled memory systems, a comparative gene study shows. Journal Scientific Reports
8-Feb-2023 UM study: Salmonflies may adapt to warming mountain streams The University of Montana Thanks to a study recently published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, a team of University of Montana researchers are closer to understanding how one particular organism, the salmonfly, may react to the rising freshwater temperatures of our changing world. Journal Journal of Experimental Biology
2-Feb-2023 Multiplication on, multiplication off: Targeting an enzymatic switch to develop oncology drugs Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology Researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Illinois Chicago have demonstrated a powerful new approach to small molecule drug development. Published in Nature Chemical Biology, their study highlights lipid-protein interaction as a new avenue for drug development and demonstrates its functionality by designing small molecule-based inhibitors to target acute myeloid leukemia. Journal Nature Chemical Biology
27-Jan-2023 Discovering unique microbes made easy with DOE Systems Biology Knowledgebase (KBase) DOE/US Department of Energy The Department of Energy Systems Biology Knowledgebase (KBase) recently released a suite of features and a protocol for performing sophisticated microbiome analysis that can accelerate research in microbial ecology. KBase helps researchers understand which organisms live in an environment and how they interact. The tool’s new features reduce the time required to process sequencing data and characterize genomes and help scientists collaboratively analyze genomics data and build research communities. Journal Nature Protocols
26-Jan-2023 The many manifestations of long COVID Jackson Laboratory New JAX research is examining long COVID using data from healthcare systems across the US as part of the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C). Journal EBioMedicine
26-Jan-2023 A sharper view inside cells Howard Hughes Medical Institute New methods to improve super-resolution imaging techniques are giving biologists a clearer and more complete view of the inner workings of living cells. Journal Nature Biotechnology
24-Jan-2023 Online tool can help researchers synthesize millions of molecules DOE/US Department of Energy The enzymes polyketide synthases and nonribosomal peptide synthetases can shuffle their parts, allowing them to produce new chemicals. To help scientists design these enzymes, researchers have improved ClusterCAD. This tool helps users modify these enzymes for synthetic biology applications. New improvements include an expanded database, powerful search tools, and helpful new features within the interface. Journal Nucleic Acids Research
27-Dec-2022 Chinese researchers build cell atlas using scattered single-cell datasets Higher Education Press Imagine a virtual human body, rich in complexity and detail, that enables scientists to simulate experiments that can’t be conducted in vivo or in vitro. A team of Chinese researchers brought this vision closer to reality by developing a framework for seamless cell-centric data assembly and built the human Ensemble Cell Atlas (hECA) using data collected from scattered public datasets. Journal Quantitative Biology
