news from the lab

Medicine/Pharmacology - Chemistry - 20.02
Yale Center for Molecular Discovery created at West Campus
The road from discovering a novel insight to turning it into a practical biomedical application is full of twists, turns, and dead ends, but a combined center at Yale's West Campus seeks to provide University faculty with the knowledge and tools to navigate from basic science to new breakthroughs in disease management.

Physics/Astronomy - Chemistry - 17.02
Rare Earth element found far, far away
Tellurium detected for the first time in ancient stars. Nearly 13.7 billion years ago, the universe was made of only hydrogen, helium and traces of lithium - byproducts of the Big Bang. Some 300 million years later, the very first stars emerged, creating additional chemical elements throughout the universe.

Life Sciences - Chemistry - 16.02
Bacteria disarmer activates fiber formation in Parkinson’s protein
The same substance that hampers the infection capability of bacteria can hasten the fiber formation of the protein that is involved in the development of Parkinson's disease. The study shows how important basic research is to our understanding of possible side effects from drug candidates interacting with various target proteins.

Chemistry - Physics/Astronomy - 15.02
New molecule discovered in fight against allergy
PA 51/12 Scientists at The University of Nottingham have discovered a new molecule that could offer the hope of new treatments for people allergic to the house dust mite. The team of immunologists led by Amir Ghaem-Maghami and Professor Farouk Shakib in the University's School of Molecular Medical Sciences have identified the molecule DC-SIGN which appears to play a role in damping down the body's allergic response to the house dust mite.

Physics/Astronomy - Chemistry - 13.02
Planck steps closer to the cosmic blueprint
Planck steps closer to the cosmic blueprint ESA's Planck mission has revealed that our Galaxy contains previously undiscovered islands of cold gas and a mysterious haze of microwaves. These results give scientists new treasure to mine and take them closer to revealing the blueprint of cosmic structure.

Chemistry - Medicine/Pharmacology - 9.02
New Method Makes Culture of Complex Tissue Possible in any Lab
Scientists at the University of California, San Diego have developed a new method for making scaffolds for culturing tissue in three-dimensional arrangements that mimic those in the body. This advance, published online in the journal Advanced Materials , allows the production of tissue culture scaffolds containing multiple structurally and chemically distinct layers using common laboratory reagents and materials.

Life Sciences - Chemistry - 3.02
Quantum biology and Ockham’s razor
In a paper just published , a team of University of Bristol scientists explores whether new models or concepts are needed to tackle one of the 'grand challenges' of chemical biology: understanding enzyme catalysis.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Chemistry - 2.02
A silver bullet to beat cancer?
The internet is awash with stories of how silver can be used to treat cancer. Now, lab tests have shown that it is as effective as the leading chemotherapy drug - and may have fewer side-effects. Results from the study at the University of Leeds, published in Dalton Transactions , show that particular silver compounds are as toxic to cancer cells as the platinum-based drug Cisplatin, which is widely used to treat a range of cancers.

Chemistry - Life Sciences - 30.01
Ferroelectric switching discovered for first time in soft biological tissue
The heart's inner workings are mysterious, perhaps even more so with a new finding. Engineers at the University of Washington have discovered an electrical property in arteries not seen before in mammalian tissues.

Chemistry - 25.01
Study unravels ’worm speak’ that uses chemicals to communicate
A species of small, transparent roundworms have a highly evolved language in which they combine chemical fragments to create precise molecular messages that control social behavior, reports a new study from the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) at Cornell and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

Life Sciences - Chemistry - 20.01
Tiny amounts of alcohol dramatically extend a worm’s life, but why?
Minuscule amounts of ethanol, the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, can more than double the life span of a tiny worm known as Caenorhabditis elegans , which is used frequently as a model in aging studies, UCLA biochemists report.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Chemistry - 17.01
Powerful drug’s surprising, simple method could lead to better treatments
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - With one simple experiment, University of Illinois chemists have debunked a widely held misconception about an often-prescribed drug.

Physics/Astronomy - Chemistry - 16.01
Scientists predict an out-of-this-world kind of ice
Cornell scientists are boldly going where no water molecule has gone before - that is, when it comes to pressures found nowhere on Earth.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Chemistry - 16.01
’Killer cells’ and diabetes
Killer T-cells in the human body which help protect us from disease can inadvertently destroy cells that produce insulin, new University research has uncovered. The study provides the first evidence of this mechanism in action and could offer new understanding of the cause of Type 1 diabetes.

Chemistry - Environmental Sciences - 13.01
Particle which could ’cool the planet’
Scientists have shown that a new molecule in the earth's atmosphere has the potential to play a significant role in off-setting global warming by cooling the planet. In a breakthrough paper published in Science, researchers from the University of Manchester , the University of Bristol and Sandia National Laboratories report the potentially revolutionary effects of Criegee biradicals.