Cell memory mechanism discovered

The cells in our bodies can divide as often as once every 24 hours, creating a new, identical copy. DNA binding proteins called transcription factors are required for maintaining cell identity. They ensure that daughter cells ...

Virus exploitscellular waste disposal system

ETH Zurich researchers demonstrate how vaccinia virus manipulates the cellular waste-disposal system and thereby cleverly tricks the cell into assisting the intruders replication. Now, the virologists have turned the tables, ...

Feedback loop maintains basal cell population

Notch – the protein that can help determine cell fate – maintains a stable population of basal cells in the prostate through a positive feedback loop system with another key protein – TGF beta (transforming growth factor ...

Studying epigenetic regulation at the single-molecule level

If one imagines the genome as an instruction manual for the functioning of a cell, every page of this manual is covered with annotations, highlights, and bookmarks. The role of some of these marks remains mysterious—do ...

Researchers build a toolbox for synthetic biology

For about a dozen years, synthetic biologists have been working on ways to design genetic circuits to perform novel functions such as manufacturing new drugs, producing fuel or even programming the suicide of cancer cells.

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