How does an intestinal microbe become a pathogen?

The bacterium Escherichia coli is found in the human intestine, and elsewhere. There it is harmless, but in certain conditions it can become a pathogen. It can cause bladder infections or even sepsis. A team of researchers ...

Helping robots to build new antibiotics

A team from The University of Manchester have engineered a common gut bacterium to produce a new class of antibiotics by using robotics. These antibiotics, known as class II polyketides, are also naturally produced by soil ...

Scientists engineer unique 'glowing' protein

Biophysicists from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology have joined forces with colleagues from France and Germany to create a new fluorescent protein. Besides glowing when irradiated with ultraviolet and blue light, ...

Sweet lysine degradation

Researchers from the Departments of Chemistry and Biology at the University of Konstanz have gained fundamental new insights into the degradation of the amino acid lysine—carcinogenic oncometabolites as intermediate products

Virus genes from city pond rescue bacteria

A key question in evolutionary biology is how new functions arise. New research at Uppsala University, Sweden, shows that bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria) can contribute to new functions by revealing hidden potential ...

Unpacking a secret of photosynthesis

Researchers at University of Stavanger have brought us one step closer to solving the fundamental question how plants build the photosynthetic machinery.

More complex biological systems evolve more freely

Our genes (aka. the genotype) determine our characteristics (aka. the phenotype). Evolution acts on changes in the phenotype, which occur when mutations change the underlying genotype. But what changes to the phenotype can ...

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