The chemical and biological aspects of cellular self-organization are well-studied; less well understood is how cell populations order themselves biomechanically – how their behavior and communication are affected by high density and physical proximity. Bioengineers and physicists at the University of California San Diego, in a paper published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, have begun to address these fundamental questions.

The hunter-versus-hunted phenomenon exemplified by a pack of lionesses chasing down a lonely gazelle has been recreated in a Petri dish with lowly bacteria.

A diverse committee of experts from around the world, convened at the request of the National Science Foundation (NSF), announced 14 grand challenges for engineering in the 21st century that, if met, would improve how we live.

For more than a decade, Peter Zandstra has been working at the University of Toronto to rev up the production of stem cells and their descendants. The raw materials are adult blood stem cells and embryonic stem cells. The end products are blood and heart cells – lots of them. Enough mouse heart cells that they form beating tissue.

Rice University bioengineers have reported an advance in tapping the immense potential of "hairy roots" as natural factories to produce medicines, food flavorings and other commercial products.

Microbes such as bacteria tend to live in complex colonies called biofilms, where there can resist antibiotics and cause more problems for the immune system.

A multi-disciplinary group of researchers from the University of Maryland, College Park, and the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute (UMBI) has won a competitive, $2 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to revolutionize the way researchers develop and test pharmaceutical drugs.