A spin out company from basic structural biology, Asterion Ltd., has led to new technology that provides a way of creating therapeutic proteins to tackle major diseases such as cancer, diabetes and infertility. The research was carried out at the University of Sheffield in laboratories supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

Researchers at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) at Virginia Tech have compiled a series of guidelines that should help researchers in their efforts to design, develop and manage next-generation databases of biological parts.

A new discovery by a scientist from The University of Western Ontario provides conclusive evidence which supports decades-old evolutionary doctrines long accepted as fact.

Like a wristwatch that needs to be wound daily for accurate time-telling, the human circadian system — the biological cycles that repeat approximately every 24 hours — requires daily light exposure to the eye’s retina to remain synchronized with the solar day.

The answer to the looming fuel crisis in the 21st century may be found by thinking small, microscopic in fact. Microscopic organisms from bacteria and cyanobacteria, to fungi to microalgae, are biological factories that are proving to efficient sources of inexpensive, environmentally friendly biofuels that can serve as alternatives to oil, according to research presented at the 108th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Boston.

Building faultless objects from faulty components may seem like alchemy. Yet scientists from the Weizmann Institute’s Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, and Biological Chemistry Departments have achieved just that, using a mathematical concept called recursion.

There exists much ethical controversy brought about by advances in biology and medicine and the relationship to religion. In a new essay in The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Laurie Zoloth takes an approach to medical ethics that draws upon Jewish texts, traditions, and philosophy to show how acting to change the world is indicative of this faith tradition.

Researchers in Carnegie Mellon University’s Lane Center for Computational Biology have discovered how to significantly speed up critical steps in an automated method for analyzing cell cultures and other biological specimens.

For young male offspring who suffer a dominant mother, a brother may be on the way to help bear the burden. And all because of follicular testosterone. A growing body of evidence suggests a maternal influence on sex determination: dominant human females conceive more sons.

They may never win an Oscar, but scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have developed techniques for creating accurate movies of biological and chemical molecules, a feat only theorized up until now.

The rapid growth of China’s industrial and transportation infrastructure is helping to establish non-native species throughout that country and “setting the stage for potentially rampant environmental damage,” according to an article in the April 2008 issue of BioScience.

Molecular biologists at the University of California, San Diego have found one piece of the complex puzzle of autophagy, the process of “self-eating” performed by all eukaryotic cells -- cells with a nucleus -- to keep themselves healthy.