Molecular Biology News and Research

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Molecular biology is the study of biology at a molecular level. The field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry. Molecular biology chiefly concerns itself with understanding the interactions between the various systems of a cell, including the interactions between DNA, RNA and protein biosynthesis as well as learning how these interactions are regulated.

Lundbeck Canada makes landmark donation of $2.7M to support depression research

Lundbeck Canada has made a landmark donation of $2.7 million to support ground-breaking research at the University Health Network to identify biomarkers that will enhance the diagnosis and treatment of patients suffering from major depression and bipolar disorder.

29 Aug 2011

Researchers identify molecule that can stop the formation of amyloid fibrils

A molecule which can stop the formation of long protein strands, known as amyloid fibrils, that cause joint pain in kidney dialysis patients has been identified by researchers at the University of Leeds.

29 Aug 2011

Pfizer receives FDA approval for XALKORI capsules to treat ALK-positive NSCLC

Pfizer Inc. announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved XALKORI (crizotinib) capsules, the first-ever therapy targeting anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK), for the treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that is ALK-positive as detected by an FDA-approved test.

29 Aug 2011

New imaging device enables scientists to see tumor cells traveling in the brain

For the first time, scientists can see pathways to stop a deadly brain cancer in its tracks. Researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have imaged individual cancer cells and the routes they travel as the tumor spreads.

26 Aug 2011

Tax on sugary drinks, limits on marketing to children may help curb global obesity epidemic

The global obesity epidemic has been escalating for decades, yet long-term prevention efforts have barely begun and are inadequate, according to a new paper from international public health experts published in the August 25, 2011 edition of the journal The Lancet.

26 Aug 2011

Bacteria tweak their genes and proteins to gain strength

Scientists have discovered that bacteria like E. coli and Salmonella have a sneaky way of making minor alterations to their genes to boost their chances for infection.

24 Aug 2011

New fertilized cells narrowly avoid degenerating into fatal chaos

Research based at Princeton University has revealed that newly fertilized cells only narrowly avoid degenerating into fatal chaos. At the same time, scientists have discovered that embryos have acquired a mechanism to contain this dangerous instability, a finding that could help biologists unravel other mysteries about the first hours of life.

24 Aug 2011

Drug co. executive gives pharma a sunny forecast

Severin Schwan thinks the skeptics are wrong. Those who shun the pharmaceutical sector for its lack of prospects don't understand the potential created by a rapidly growing understanding of genetics and molecular biology, and the new drugs that will follow. ... the chief executive of Roche Holding AG, the world's seventh-largest drug firm by sales, is an informed optimist.

22 Aug 2011

First Edition: August 22, 2011

Reporting for Kaiser Health News, Harris Meyer writes: "In the fourth year of a depressed real estate market, experts say thousands of seniors remain unable to move into senior housing because they can't sell their homes quickly enough or for the price they need. The upshot: Greater pressure on families to pay for parents' and grandparents' placements, or to care for them themselves"

22 Aug 2011

Micro-organisms hide themselves from immune defences

That micro-organisms have a great capacity to vary their surface structure is well known. It is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to develop vaccines against HIV and malaria, and why new influenza vaccines have to be produced every year. But it seems that these micro-organisms are also able to completely avoid activating a strong immune response in the person attacked.

22 Aug 2011

NIH-supported project expands genetic research into clinical setting

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine researchers have received a $762,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to tailor drug treatments to patients' genomic information.

20 Aug 2011

Large-scale population imaging reveals robust sparse coding in Drosophila mushroom body

A research team at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) led by Assistant Professor Glenn Turner has published results of experiments that show large populations of neurons in the brains of living fruit flies responding simultaneously to a variety of odors.

19 Aug 2011

Researchers isolate 17 novel antibodies against HIV

A team of researchers at and associated with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), The Scripps Research Institute, the biotechnology company Theraclone Sciences and Monogram Biosciences Inc., a LabCorp company, report in the current issue of Nature the isolation of 17 novel antibodies capable of neutralizing a broad spectrum of variants of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

18 Aug 2011

Harmless bacteria re-engineered to fight a deadly strain

Scientists in Singapore have re-engineered a harmless strain of bacteria to fight another common, drug-resistant microbe that spreads in hospitals and is deadly to patients with weak immune systems.

17 Aug 2011

Study investigates autism spectrum disorder, sibling recurrence

The risk that an infant with an older sibling with autism also will develop the disorder, previously estimated at between 3 and 10 percent, is substantially higher at approximately 19 percent, a large, international, multi-site study led by researchers at the UC Davis MIND Institute has found.

16 Aug 2011

Scientists define relationship between two prostate tumor suppressor genes

Of the 250,000 American men who will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year, very few of them-about 1 percent-will develop lethal, metastatic disease. Finding a way to distinguish between this small cohort and the majority of patients who will develop an indolent, non-lethal form of prostate cancer is a key goal in prostate cancer research.

16 Aug 2011

Tel Aviv University scientists work to determine how H1N1 becomes pandemic

The last century has seen two major pandemics caused by the H1N1 virus - the Spanish Flu in 1918 and 2009's Swine Flu scare, which had thousands travelling with surgical masks and clamoring for vaccination. But scientists did not know what distinguished the Swine Flu from ordinary influenza in pigs or seasonal outbreaks in humans, giving it the power to travel extensively and infect large populations.

16 Aug 2011

Red meat consumption may increase risk of type 2 diabetes

A new study by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers finds a strong association between the consumption of red meat-particularly when the meat is processed-and an increased risk of type 2 diabetes.

11 Aug 2011

Flatworms provide new insight into organ regeneration, evolution of mammalian kidneys

Our bodies are perfectly capable of renewing billions of cells every day but fail miserably when it comes to replacing damaged organs such as kidneys. Using the flatworm Schmidtea mediterranea-famous for its capacity to regrow complete animals from minuscule flecks of tissue-as an eloquent example, researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research demonstrated how our distant evolutionary cousins regenerate their excretory systems from scratch.

10 Aug 2011

MAVS prion-like proteins are involved in innate immunity: Discovery

A person's ability to battle viruses at the cellular level remarkably resembles the way deadly infectious agents called prions misfold and cluster native proteins to cause disease, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report.

9 Aug 2011