2-D computer simulation reveals unexpected pathway
What goes into the stomach must come out, but perhaps not in the same order in which it entered, as gastroenterologists have long assumed. A two-dimensional computer model of human stomach digestion...
Jan, 01, 2007
How precise an image can fluorescence microscopy provide?
As modern optics and cell biology have flourished in recent years, they’ve each driven innovation in the other. Yet commonly employed imaging techniques, such as fluorescence microscopy, have...
Sep, 01, 2011
How social media sites are rapidly doing unique research on large cohorts
It has become commonplace for people to use social media to share their healthcare stories, seek a community of individuals with the same diseases, and learn about treatment options. All this...
Jan, 02, 2012
Simulating how cells form patterns.
Normal zebrafish have stripes, but mutant forms may display spots, blotches, or labyrinthine patterns. It’s a scenario that Rudyard Kipling might turn into a wonderful “just-so”...
Jul, 01, 2008
Public databases impact not only how research is done but what kind of research is done in the first place.
The setting: a scientific conference in January 2008. The speaker, Bruce Ponder, MD, PhD, an oncology professor at Cambridge University, is describing a previously unknown link between a particular...
Oct, 01, 2008
CompuCell-3D models behaviors rather than genes
Researchers have successfully simulated how growing blood vessels affect the sizes and shapes of tumors using a 3-D model based solely on how cells behave—without reference to intracellular...
Jan, 01, 2010
Many new drugs carry a risk that they will cause more problems than they cure. That’s because a drug intended to bind one protein might also bind others. In an effort to address that problem,...
Apr, 01, 2008
The edict that academics must “publish or perish” serves not merely to advance careers, but also to stress the importance of transmitting knowledge from scientist to scientist and...
Jan, 01, 2006
Using computation, researchers narrow the search space for directed evolution; guide mutagenesis; and create de novo enzymes
Enzymes are among nature’s crowning achievements: they accelerate chemical reactions, making life possible. People have co-opted natural enzymes for industrial use for thousands of years (think...
Feb, 19, 2013
Biologists have long taken gas exchange for granted, assuming that gases simply seep through the cell’s lipid membrane. Since 1998, however, evidence has been building that gases might also be...
Jul, 01, 2007