Tag: Molecular Biology
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Nation & World
How brain cells make good connections
Harvard neuroscientist Venkatesh N. Murthy has a sunny second-floor office on Divinity Avenue, where he is a professor in Harvard’s Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. In one corner is a set of weights and a soccer ball — both untouched in over a year, he said, because of an intensely busy schedule.
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Nation & World
Decoding effort reveals fly species’ DNA
An enormous effort to decode the DNA of one of science’s most important laboratory animals — the fruit fly — ended in success this week as a collaboration of researchers from 16 nations announced the sequencing of 10 fly species’ genomes.
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Nation & World
Scientists image vivid ‘brainbows’
By activating multiple fluorescent proteins in neurons, neuroscientists at Harvard University are imaging the brain and nervous system as never before, rendering these cells in a riotous spray of colors dubbed a “Brainbow.”
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Nation & World
Nine Harvard faculty members win NIH’s Pioneer, Innovator Awards
Nine Harvard researchers “well-positioned to make significant – and potentially transformative – discoveries in a variety of areas,” ranging from brain development to reprogramming stem cells, have been awarded special…
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Nation & World
Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers granted approval
After more than two years of intensive ethical and scientific review, Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers at Harvard and Children’s Hospital Boston have been cleared to begin experiments using…
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Nation & World
X inactivation seen as contact sport
At an early stage in a female embryo’s development, one of the two X chromosomes in each of its cells becomes inactivated. In two recent papers, the lab of Jeannie…
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Nation & World
Long-term memory controlled by molecular pathway at synapses
Even for a fruit fly, learning and memory are important adaptive tools that facilitate survival in the environment. A fly can learn to avoid what may do it harm, such…
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Nation & World
Synthetic molecule blocks exit from cell organelle
The ubiquitous, small GTPases are a family of signal transduction molecules that play crucial roles in numerous biological processes, including cell motility and division. Though scientists have eyed these proteins…
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Nation & World
New findings help explain how brain pathways control body weight
A study led by a scientific team at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center provides another important step in our understanding of the critical role that the brain’s molecular pathways play…
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Nation & World
Molecular middleman puts thyroid hormone in developmental signaling pathway
Tissues such as muscle and brain convert the inactive form of thyroid hormone, T4, into T3, the active form of thyroid hormone, when necessary. In the 1980s, researchers discovered that…
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Nation & World
Molecule implicated in transcription termination
When a protein is made its DNA code must first be rewritten as messenger RNA (mRNA). This process of transcription requires a large enzyme complex, RNA polymerase, to begin at…
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Nation & World
3-D images reveal key step in viral entry into cells
Work published in the Jan. 22, 2004, issue of Nature is a significant advance in the understanding of how viruses cause infection, and offers two possible strategies for blocking these…
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Nation & World
New study identifies inhibitor of anthrax toxin
Findings by a research team could eventually lead to the development of a protease inhibitor drug, which in combination with antibiotics could be used to treat anthrax cases later in…
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Nation & World
Scientists discover chemical switch that determines muscle fiber type
Published in the Aug. 15, 2002 issue of the journal Nature, findings from a multi-institutional team describe the pivotal role of a molecule called PGC-1 in transforming “fast twitch” fibers…
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Nation & World
Whole genes delivered to cells
To make a protein, a cell’s enzymes typically edit out about 90 percent of the information along the length of a DNA strand that makes up a whole gene. In…
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Nation & World
Researcher Sunney Xie interested in molecule as an individual
Sunney Xie is one of the world’s leading researchers in molecular imaging and in single-molecule reactions. Xie’s has devised a way to use laser beams to see collections of protein…