Either/or molecular circuitry modeled
To differentiate or not to differentiate? That is the question constantly faced by embryonic stem cells. And they seem to answer it decisively at the behest of a molecular trio of transcription...
Jan, 01, 2007
Describing information flow within cells
Like corporate and governmental organizations, cells rely on middle managers to keep things running smoothly. These “middle managers” function as a critical bridge that controls the flow...
Jun, 01, 2010
T-Rex in the Slow Lane
by Kristen Cobb
Tyrannosaurus rex is often pictured baring its teeth, crouching, and running swiftly after its prey, but these images are largely based on human fancy...
Jan, 01, 2006
Neighbor cells affect stem cell differentiation in computer simulation
Every generation, a few nonconformists crop up in tissue cultures of genetically identical cells. The question is: are the wayward simply born that way, or did something in the environment affect...
Jul, 01, 2007
A newly created molecular computer works in human cells and offers the flexibility of a general-purpose circuit. The advance, described in Nature Biotechnology in May, brings closer the eventual...
Oct, 01, 2007
While science educators actively debate the relative merits of teaching natural science in an integrated fashion, some authors are writing texts that will make it happen. Philip Nelson’s book,...
Jun, 01, 2005
Having developed detailed and sophisticated models of both E. Coli and human metabolism, researchers can begin to build toward a whole cell model that will be useful for the study of human health and disease.
If biologists really understood the functioning of the genome, they could in principle recreate it in silico. Instead of a choreographed swirl of molecules inside a living cell, electrons...
Oct, 01, 2008
And people are starting to notice
In 1991, a prescient editorial in Nature by Harvard’s Walter Gilbert, PhD, (“Towards a paradigm shift in biology”) included these observations on the utility and impact of computing...
Apr, 01, 2006
Computer simulation helps explain how plants grow
The petals of every flower and the leaves sprouting from every plant stalk have characteristic arrangements, a phenomenon called phyllotaxis. For two centuries, botanists have puzzled over the force...
Jul, 01, 2007
There comes a tipping point in systems-biology studies of gene function where knowing some genes’ functions can, using a computational approach, help hone in on the functions of other genes....
Apr, 01, 2010