Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified a previously undetected trigger point on a naturally occurring "death protein" that helps the body get rid of unwanted or diseased cells. They say it may be possible to exploit the newly found trigger as a target for designer drugs that would treat cancer by forcing malignant cells to commit suicide.

Researchers at Newcastle University have taken a step forward in our understanding of how the fundamental building blocks of life are put together.

In the tiny realm of nanotechnology, scientists have used a wide variety of materials to build atomic scale structures. But just as in the construction business, nanotechnology researchers can often be limited by the amount of raw materials.

MIT researchers have designed a new type of probe that can image thousands of interactions between proteins inside a living cell, giving them a tool to untangle the web of signaling pathways that control most of a cell's activities.

Switches are a part of daily life, from snoozing your alarm, turning on the coffee maker, firing up your car engine, and so on until we turn off the lights at night. Researchers have now cataloged even more templates of possible switches within a living cell than we use throughout our day.

For an organism to develop and function, the individual cells must exchange information, or communicate, with each other.

A team of Penn State researchers has developed a simple artificial cell with which to investigate the organization and function of two of the most basic cell components: the cell membrane and the cytoplasm--the gelatinous fluid that surrounds the structures in living cells.

The ubiquity of tiny particles of minerals-mineral nanoparticles-in oceans and rivers, atmosphere and soils, and in living cells are providing scientists with new ways of understanding Earth's workings. Our planet's physical, chemical, and biological processes are influenced or driven by the properties of these minerals.

In a technical advance that could allow researchers to watch cells as they act during the process of photosynthesis, scientists have developed a method that extends the power of fluorescence-mediated bio-imaging to see discrete pigments inside live cells of bacteria.

The view into the inner world of living cells just got a little brighter and more colorful. A powerful new research tool, when used with other labeling technologies, allows simultaneous visualization of two or more different proteins as well as the ability to distinguish young and old copies of a protein within one living cell.

Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University's Molecular Biosensor and Imaging Center (MBIC) have developed new "fluorogen activating proteins" (FAPs) that will become a key component of novel molecular biosensor technology being created at Carnegie Mellon. The FAPs, which can be used to monitor biological activities of individual proteins and other biomolecules within living cells in real time, are described in the February issue of Nature Biotechnology.

Bioengineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have discovered a technique that for the first time enables the detection of biomolecules' dynamic reactions in a single living cell.