News tagged with biological membranes

A cell's first steps: Building a model to explain how cells grow

A collaboration between Lehigh University physicists and University of Miami biologists addresses an important fundamental question in basic cell biology: How do living cells figure out when and where to grow?

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created May 18, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

When dying, bacteria share some characteristics with higher organisms

Do bacteria, like higher organisms, have a built-in program that tells them when to die? The process of apoptosis, or cell death, is an important part of normal animal development. In a new study published March 6 in the ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Mar 06, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Research shows how the body senses a range of hot temperatures

The winter sun feels welcome, but not so a summer sunburn. Research over the past 20 years has shown that proteins on the surface of nerve cells enable the body to sense several different temperatures. Now scientists have ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Mar 02, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Optogenetic tool elucidated: Researchers explain channelrhodopsin

Controlling nerve cells with the aid of light: this is made possible by optogenetics. It enables, for example, the investigation of neurobiological processes with unprecedented spatial and temporal precision. The key tool ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Feb 28, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Researchers discover what cancer cells need to travel

(PhysOrg.com) -- Cancer cells must prepare for travel before invading new tissues, but new Cornell research has found a possible way to stop these cells from ever hitting the road.

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Feb 22, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (14) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

A surprising molecular switch: Lipids help control the development of cell polarity

In a standard biology textbook, cells tend to look more or less the same from all sides. But in real life cells have fronts and backs, tops and bottoms, and they orient many of their structures according to ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Feb 19, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Rearranging the cell's skeleton: Small molecules at the cell's membrane enable cell movement

Cell biologists at Johns Hopkins have identified key steps in how certain molecules alter a cell's skeletal shape and drive the cell's movement.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Feb 02, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Membrane fusion a mystery no more

The many factors that contribute to how cells communicate and function at the most basic level are still not fully understood, but researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have uncovered a mechanism that helps explain how ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Jan 24, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Scientists characterize protein essential to survival of malaria parasite

A biology lab at Washington University has just cracked the structure and function of a protein that plays a key role in the life of a parasite that killed 655,000 people in 2010.

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Jan 06, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Scientists reveal how bacteria build homes inside healthy cells

(PhysOrg.com) -- Bacteria are able to build camouflaged homes for themselves inside healthy cells - and cause disease - by manipulating a natural cellular process.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Dec 20, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

SANS tracks cell death protein invading biomimetic mitochondrial membrane

(PhysOrg.com) -- An international team of biochemists, biophysicists, and neutron scientists are using a combination of fluorescence and small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) techniques to assist biochemists ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Dec 15, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Researchers uncover new function for cell master regulator

(PhysOrg.com) -- TORC1 is a master regulator in cells, playing a key role in such diverse processes as gene expression and protein synthesis. While previous studies have described the role that TORC1 plays ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Nov 29, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

New technique enables study of 'challenging' proteins

Researchers from Hull, Bristol and Frankfurt have shown that a new technique for identifying molecular structure can be used effectively on small samples of biological proteins, particularly proteins that are targeted for ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Nov 14, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Finding E. coli’s Achilles heel

(PhysOrg.com) -- Thanks to the work of a Simon Fraser University researcher and two of his students, science is closer to finding a new way of combatting infections caused by Escherichia coli (E. coli) and other related bacteria.

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Nov 10, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Researchers identify structure of apolipoprotein

Using a sophisticated technique of x-ray crystallography, researchers Xiaohu Mei, PhD, and David Atkinson, PhD, from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have for the first time obtained an "image" of the structure ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Nov 04, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast