Can sequencing shed light on cell cycling?

Can synthetic biology shed light on the origin of life?

It is a most commonly accepted hypothesis that life originated from inanimate matter, somehow being a synthetic product of organic aggregates, and as such, a result of some sort of prebiotic synthetic biology. In the past decades, the newly formed scientific discipline of synthetic biology has set ambitious goals by pursuing the complete design and production of genetic circuits, entire genomes...

Quantum dots shed light on diagnoses.

Featured article: Kim S, Lim YT, Soltesz EG, De Grand AM, Lee J, Nakayama A, Parker JA, Mihaljevic T, Laurence RG, Dor DM, Cohn LH, Bawendi MG, Frangioni JV. Near-infrared fluorescent type II quantum dots for sentinel lymph node mapping. Nat Biotechnol 2004;22:93–7. Near-infrared (NIR) (700 –2500 nm) in vivo imaging with semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) can offer nonradioactive extraction of me...

Genotype networks shed light on evolutionary constraints.

An evolutionary constraint is a bias or limitation in phenotypic variation that a biological system produces. One can distinguish physicochemical, selective, genetic and developmental causes of such constraints. Here, I discuss these causes in three classes of system that bring forth many phenotypic traits and evolutionary innovations: regulatory circuits, macromolecules and metabolic networks....

Studies shed light on sunscreen efficacy.

Can Big Data Shed Light on the Origins of Pediatric Cancer?

Twenty-five years ago, Sir Richard Doll and Sir Richard Peto estimated in their landmark monograph, The Causes of Cancer, that 75% to 80% of adult cancer could be attributed to lifestyle choices and environmental exposures.1 In stark contrast, elucidating the causes of childhood cancer remains one of the most vexing questions in medicine. Despite progress in identifying the molecular causes of ...