The invention of the microscope has been fundamental for the understanding of tissue architecture and subcellular structures. With the advancement of higher magnification microscopes came the development of various molecular biology tools such as Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) and in situ proximity ligation assay (in situ PLA) to monitor protein interactions. Microscopy has become a c...

This paper concerns those patients whose brain is irreversibly damaged to the point where they will never recover significant mental life. I examine the reasons which justify the decision to withhold or discontinue active medical intervention in these patients. They involve the identity, quality of life and agency of those beings whom we value as persons.

We consider the problem of fairly allocating a bundle of infinitely divisible goods among a group of agents with “classical” preferences. We propose to measure an agent’s “sacrifice” at an allocation by the size of the set of feasible bundles that the agent prefers to her consumption. As a solution, we select the allocations at which sacrifices are equal across agents and this common sacrifice ...

levels. This fits well with the observation that the repul-1998). It remains to be seen, however, whether these or 1133.102, 363–375. tions be in mediating guidance decisions at choice points? Another possible site for this mechanism to operate is at the ventral midline of the CNS. In vertebrates, commissural axon crossing of the ventral midline of the spinal cord is regulated by a combination ...

During mammalian brain development, many neurons migrate away from the site where they are born to settle in distant locations where they send out dendrites and axons to connect with other neurons. Both neuronal migration and axon/dendrite extension depend on forces generated by microtubule-based motor proteins such as cytoplasmic dynein. The effects of these forces depend, however, on the orga...

In the March 2006 issue of EMBO reports, Christof Tannert, a bioethicist at the Max Delbrück Research Centre in Berlin, Germany, presented a moral argument against human reproductive cloning on the basis of Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative (Tannert, 2006). In this article, I address some problems with Tannert’s views and show that our concerns about this prospective procedure should promp...

Fortunately the momentum to ensure that a person’s right to involvement in research is upheld has just gone up a gear. The Mental Capacity Act 2005 Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (MCA DOLS), which is a supplement to the main MCA Code of Practice (2007), has just passed through parliament. A whole variety of regulations, training and practice implications will follow for anyone who may have t...