What is environmental DNA?
by Arianna Lord Continue reading What is environmental DNA?
Tag: Chemistry
Dissecting cancer complexity across space and time
by Jackson Weirfigures by Jasmin Joseph-Chazan Why is cancer so difficult to cure? Why do available treatments only help a subset of patients? Why are some cancers more aggressive than others? These are questions that clinicians, scientists, and the public have pondered for generations. As it turns out, the answers are complicated because cancer biology is complicated. Luckily, new tools and technologies are helping us … Continue reading Dissecting cancer complexity across space and time
Solving Scientific Problems by Asking Diverse Questions
by Piyush Nandafigures by Shreya Mantri Gravity has been apparent for thousands of years: Aristotle, for example, proposed that objects fall to settle into their natural place in 4th century BC. But it was not until around 1900, when Issac Newton explained gravity using mathematical equations, that we really understood the phenomenon. Why didn’t thinkers before Newton think about gravity the way he did? Scientific … Continue reading Solving Scientific Problems by Asking Diverse Questions
Viral Fossil Records: A Look into the Past! (and the Future?)
by Misha Guptafigures by Xiaomeng Han For close to two centuries, humans have been studying the biological past using fossil records. In recent history, we have added the ability to reconstruct the sequence of our DNA to our arsenal. Furthermore, phylogenetic trees (structures that define the evolutionary relationships in the line of descent from a common ancestor) have been created for all manners of organisms, … Continue reading Viral Fossil Records: A Look into the Past! (and the Future?)
Asexual Species Can Adapt to their Environment Even Without Changing their DNA
Asexual species do not have genetic variability like humans, and most animals, do. Despite that, they can still adapt to environmental changes using modifications to their DNA known as epigenetic changes. Continue reading Asexual Species Can Adapt to their Environment Even Without Changing their DNA
Submicroscopic Pistons Open a New Chapter for Nanomachines
Nanomachines are plagued by their short lifespans and the looming chaos in the environment. This group at TUM used a new tubular design made from DNA to keep the machine together, but the chaos out. Continue reading Submicroscopic Pistons Open a New Chapter for Nanomachines
Gertrude Elion: Forging the path towards a cure for cancer
Jasmin Joseph-Chazan is a second-year PhD student in the Immunology department at Harvard University. You can find her on Twitter as @chazanjasmin. Isabella Fraschilla is a Ph.D. student in the Immunology Program at Harvard Medical School. She is studying how immune cells regulate commensal gut bacteria. Cover image by Arek Socha from Pixabay. This biography is part of our “Picture a Scientist” initiative. To learn … Continue reading Gertrude Elion: Forging the path towards a cure for cancer
Gertrude Elion: Forging the path towards a cure for cancer
by Isabella Fraschilla Despite never receiving a PhD, Gertrude Elion was awarded the 1988 Nobel Prize in Medicine. She shared this prize with Sir James Black and her mentor George Hitchings for revolutionizing pharmacology by rejecting the standard trial-and-error approach for rational drug design. Their critical work in understanding drug metabolism and physiological processes resulted in the rare Nobel Prize awarded to employees of a … Continue reading Gertrude Elion: Forging the path towards a cure for cancer
Scientists Store Data in DNA of Living Bacteria
Using electrical inputs and CRISPR biology, researchers have programmed bacteria to encode binary data. Continue reading Scientists Store Data in DNA of Living Bacteria
Preliminary Studies Point toward New COVID-19 Drug Targets
Breakthrough research published in Nucleic Acids Research suggests SARS-CoV-2-related RNA may serve as potential drug targets for COVID-19. Continue reading Preliminary Studies Point toward New COVID-19 Drug Targets