Press monitoring
A slither of DNA identifies snakebite antidote
11.11.2014 | Press monitoring
Bitten by a snake? A DNA test could help find the antidote. When a snake bites someone, it leaves some of its DNA along with the venom. Now, that can identify the species of snake; a finding that could take the guesswork out of choosing the right antidote. "At present, the standard of practice is no identification at all, a diagnosis from the...
Engineered for tolerance, bacteria pump out higher quantity of renewable gasoline
10.11.2014 | Press monitoring
An international team of bioengineers has boosted the ability of bacteria to produce isopentenol, a compound with desirable gasoline properties. The finding, published in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, is a significant step toward developing a bacterial strain that can yield industrial quantities...
Japan scientists make see-through mice
7.11.2014 | Press monitoring
Researchers at the RIKEN Quantitative Biology Center in Japan, together with collaborators from the University of Tokyo, have developed a method that combines tissue decolorization and light-sheet fluorescent microscopy to take extremely detailed images of the interior of individual organs and even entire organisms. The work, published in Cell,...
Possible alternative to antibiotics
6.11.2014 | Press monitoring
Scientists from the University of Bern have developed a novel substance for the treatment of severe bacterial infections without antibiotics, which would prevent the development of antibiotic resistance. Ever since the development of penicillin almost 90 years ago, antibiotics have remained the gold standard in the treatment of bacterial...
Synthetic biology: Telomerator reshapes synthetic yeast chromosome
5.11.2014 | Press monitoring
NYU Langone yeast geneticists report they have developed a novel tool -- dubbed "the telomerator" -- that could redefine the limits of synthetic biology and advance how successfully living things can be engineered or constructed in the laboratory based on an organism's genetic, chemical base-pair structure. Synthetic biologists aim to use such...
Breast milk stem cells may be incorporated into baby
4.11.2014 | Press monitoring
It was discovered seven years ago that human breast milk also contains a kind of stem cell. The question was whether these cells do anything useful for the baby or if they simply leak unavoidably into breast milk. Stem cells have the unusual ability to regenerate themselves and develop into a variety of tissues. Several sources of stem cells are...
Molecular map reveals genetic origins of 21 autoimmune diseases
3.11.2014 | Press monitoring
Scientists have created a molecular map that pinpoints genetic variants that play a role in 21 different autoimmune diseases, they report Oct. 27 in the journal Nature. Researchers at Yale, the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF), and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard developed a sophisticated mathematical model and created maps of...
Contamination likely explains food genes in blood claim
31.10.2014 | Press monitoring
Laboratory contaminants likely explain the results of a recent study claiming that complete genes can pass from foods we eat into our blood, according to a University of Michigan molecular biologist who re-examined data from the controversial research paper. Richard Lusk said his findings highlight an underappreciated problem -- contamination of...
Scientists generate first human stomach tissue in lab with stem cells
30.10.2014 | Press monitoring
Scientists used pluripotent stem cells to generate functional, three-dimensional human stomach tissue in a laboratory -- creating an unprecedented tool for researching the development and diseases of an organ central to several public health crises, ranging from cancer to diabetes. Scientists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center...
Virus recreated after 700 years in icy caribou poo
29.10.2014 | Press monitoring
One day, 700 years ago, a caribou defecated on ice in what would become Canada. Today, scientists have opened this long-frozen time capsule and found an entire plant virus inside it. Eric Delwart of the University of California, San Francisco, and his colleagues discovered the virus in samples of frozen caribou faeces collected from ice patches...
