How some tools are already impacting patients
Medical decision-making is often more art than science, requiring physicians to exercise judgment in the face of complex factual circumstances. But now a few tools offer the opportunity to...
Apr, 01, 2011
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
A robot that develops hypotheses of its own
Robots already have a place in many labs, automating tedious tasks such as pipetting samples. But a new system designed at Aberystwyth University in the United Kingdom has taken laboratory automation...
Jul, 01, 2009
A computer algorithm manipulates antibodies to predict which forms will bind their targets more tightly
The word “antibody” conjures images of our bodies fighting off bacteria and viruses. But because they can latch onto their targets with great precision, antibodies are also used to treat...
Jan, 01, 2008
Using computational models, researchers are gaining traction toward understanding what makes a stem cell a stem cell; how gene expression drives stem cell differentiation; why studying stem cell heterogeneity is important; and, ultimately, how stem cells control their fate.
To the casual observer, stem cells offer the almost magical promise of—Voila!—turning into exactly the kind of cell needed to repair an injured spinal cord or replace a damaged organ. And...
Apr, 01, 2010
Structure-prediction algorithm searches for most likely conformation
If you want to find a Tab ‘A’ that will fit into a Slot ‘B’, you’ll waste a lot of time if you don’t know the shape of the slot. For scientists trying to design...
Jul, 01, 2006
Medicinal patches applied to the skin are an attractive route for drug delivery since they can release medicine slowly into the bloodstream and avoid being metabolized by the digestive system. Yet...
Oct, 01, 2009
An opportunity and a challenge
When discussing biocomputation startups, there’s one thing people agree on: These days, they don’t generate much excitement among venture capitalists.
“In the 1990s, there...
Apr, 01, 2007
A virtual metabolic network represents intracellular traffic
It’s hard to imagine a map depicting the daily flow of traffic on water, wheels and foot throughout San Diego—or any large city—over the course of a day. “That map can...
Apr, 01, 2007
They're more than just pretty pictures adorning office walls and presentation slides. Beamed into operating room computer monitors, they're guiding the scalpels of brain surgeons. Dancing...
Jan, 01, 2012