Tag: "bios" at biology news

The BIOS Initiative - open source biotechnology is born

.. In a publication today in the prestigious scientific journal, Nature, a team at CAMBIA in Canberra unveils the 'kernel' of the world's first 'explicit open source' biotechnology toolkit. These tools, and the precedent they establish, will allow the public-sector, small to medium enterprises and even large firms worldwide to explore new business models and begin a new era of...

Applied Biosystems Introduces Advanced Gene Expression Service Provider Program

Applied Biosystems (NYSE:ABI), an Applera Corporation business, today announced the introduction of the Applied Biosystems Advanced Gene Expression Service Provider Program, a new program for service providers who are interested in accessing Applied Biosystems comprehensive solution for gene expression analysis, including the highly sensitive Expression Array System for whole genome analysis and...

Evidence of 600-million-year old fungi-algae symbiosis discovered in marine fossils

Researchers from China and the United States have found evidence of lichen-like symbiosis in 600-million-year-old fossils from South China. The previous earliest evidence of lichen was 400 million years old, discovered in Scotland. The discovery also adds to the scarce fossil record of fungi and raises new questions about lichen evolution. . Xunlai Yuan, a paleontologist with the Nanjing Institut...

Aptamer-based Biosensor screens Air Force personnel and equipment

Air Force personnel will soon know within minutes if they or their equipment are contaminated with a biological agent, thanks to a new technology developed by the Air Force and a national laboratory. .. . "The system will provide an increased capability for Air Force Special Operations personnel to rapidly determine the presence of biological warfare agents in a combat environment," said Dr. Rich...

Sangamo BioSciences demonstrates its ZFP treatment protects cells from HIV infection

Sangamo BioSciences, Inc. today announced that data from its program to develop a ZFP Therapeutic for HIV/AIDS were presented at the 45th Annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) in Washington, DC. The study represents the first demonstration that cells can be made resistant to HIV infection by treatment with Sangamo's proprietary zinc finger DNA-binding pr...

A biosensor layered like lasagna

In a mixing of pasta metaphors, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scientists have used electrostatic attraction to layer reactive biological molecules lasagna-like around spaghetti-like carbon nanotubes. . .. The technique, described in the current (April) Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, enables enzymes,...

Rochester scientists develop fast-working biosensor

University of Rochester Medical Center scientists have demonstrated a new technology that accurately and rapidly detects the meat-spoiling and sometimes dangerous E. coli bacteria. . .. .. "We've developed a ver...

Discovery of new molecular tools for biosynthesis could lead to advances in use of pectin

Most people know pectin as a common household gelling agent in making jams and jellies, but its uses are vast. It has anticancer properties, for instance, and may have a role in important biological functions including plant growth and development and defense against disease. . Despite the importance of pectin as a major component in the primary walls of plants, scientists have known relatively l...

Smell of success for nanobiosensors

The new interdisciplinary technology approach, developed and tested by researchers in Spain, France and Italy with funding from the European Commission's FET (Future and Emerging Technologies) initiative of the IST programme, will ultimately lead to electronic noses based on natural olfactory receptors that could be used not only in healthcare but also in agriculture, industry, environmental prot...

Surprising symbiosis: Glassy-winged sharpshooter eats with friends

Like a celebrity living on mineral water, the glassy-winged sharpshooter consumes only the dilute sap of woody plants--including grapevines in California, which is feverishly working to prevent the insect's flight into prized vineyards. . Now, in a surprising study published in the June 6 issue of Public Library of Science Biology (PLoS Biology), researchers at The Institute for Genomic Research...

A new portable biosensor detects traces of contaminants in food more quickly and cheaply

Scientists at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), in cooperation with the CSIC, have developed a new electro-chemical biosensor which detects the presence, in food, of very small amounts of atrazine –one of the most widely used herbicides in agriculture and which also has very long lasting effects on the environment- as well as antibiotics in food. The biosensor is faster, more portable...