Harnessing phytochrome's glowing potential

Harnessing phytochrome's glowing potential.

Directed evolution of a cyanobacterial phytochrome was undertaken to elucidate the structural basis of its light sensory activity by remodeling the chemical environment of its linear tetrapyrrole prosthetic group. In addition to identifying a small region of the apoprotein critical for maintaining phytochrome's native spectroscopic properties, our studies revealed a tyrosine-to-histidine mutati...

Phytochromes

In addition, we are using the frog system to study size changes that occur during early development by preparing extracts from embryos at different stages. The fertilized egg is 1 mm in diameter in X. laevis, and undergoes rapid cleavages without growth so that the first ~4000 cells of the embryo are generated with minimal transcription or translation. I believe Xenopus will allow us to crack f...

Glowing tags

Tagging physical objects to get a link from the physical world into some kind of technology has been done for a long time. The most commonly known is probably the barcodes that is used in five billion scans every day. During a project at Xerox Research Centre Europe in Cambridge, we came across the concept of Glow Tags. It is partly an expansion of the more traditional tags by, from a user pers...

Harnessing the potential of entertainment-education telenovelas

The enormous economic, political and social problems of the developing world call for creating effective, equitable, and socially responsible mass media programs that will solve human problems and benefit society. The present article investigates the use of the entertainment-education strategy in mass communication, especially focusing on the potential of telenovelas in addressing problems of n...

Harnessing the Potential of Adenovirus Vectored Vaccines