Micro

W.M. Keck Foundation funds study of friendly microbes

You could say that the Human Genome Project missed 99 percent of the genes in the adult body. That's because it didn't sequence genes belonging to the vast communities of bacteria that normally live on and in us. Now a $1.45 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation to researchers at the School of Medicine will help fill this gap by funding a study to develop new approaches for isolatin...

Yellowstone microbes fueled by hydrogen, according to U. of Colorado study

Microbes living in the brilliantly coloredhot springs of Yellowstone National Park use primarily hydrogen forfuel, a discovery University of Colorado at Boulder researchers saybodes well for life in extreme environments on other planets and couldadd to understanding of bacteria inside the human body.A team of CU-Boulder biologists led by Professor Norman Pace, one ofthe world's leading expe...

Affymetrix Unveils Plans to Double Plant and Animal Genome Microarray Offering

Sacramento - Today, Affymetrix, Inc.announced plans to make eight new GeneChip(R) plant and animal genomearrays available in 2005 as part of its Consortia Program, includingcanine, Rhesus macaque, Medicago trancatula (legume), Brassica, tomato,citrus, poplar and sugar cane. More than 20 research presentations atthis week's Plant and Animal Genome Conference XIII in San Diego,Calif. feature...

Study Demonstrates Gene Expression Microarrays are Comparable and Reproducible

Foreveryone doing or reading a paper about microarray-based experiments,reproductibility, especially inter-lab, is the #1 concern. Can I trustthese results? If I redo the same experiment in one month, will I beable to compare both? The NIH recently demonstrated that microarrays experiments performed in d...

Breakthrough Microarray-based Technology for the Study of Cancer

A new development in the analysis of cancerhas been announced by Agilent Technologies. The company has reported aninnovative method that enables the rapid advance of microarray-basedcomparative genomic studies in cancer. According to the reportpublished in the December 24, 2004 issue of the Proceedings of theNational Academy of Science (PNAS) in collaboration with the NationalHuman Genome R...

Yale Scientists Find MicroRNA Regulates Ras Cancer Gene

Research in the laboratory of Assistant Professor Frank J. Slack at Yale University has identified a new way that a familiar gene is regulated in lung cancer, presenting new possibilities for diagnosis and treatment. The work is reported in March issues of the journals Cell and Developmental Cell. The oncogene Ras is out of control in about 20 percent of cancers where it is over-expressed...

Open microfluidic and nanofluidic systems

The labs of the future will be "labs-on-a-chip", i.e., integrated chemical and biochemical laboratories shrunk down to the size of a computer chip. An essential prerequisite for such labs are appropriate microcompartments for the confinement of very small amounts of liquids and chemical reagents. Directly accessible surface channels, which can be fabricated by available photolithographic methods,...

Nanogen Issued Patent for Electronic Microarray With Memory

Nanogen, Inc. (Nasdaq: NGEN), developer of advanced diagnostic products, announced today that it was issued U.S. Patent No. 6,867,048, "Multiplexed Active Biologic Array" by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The '048 patent relates to a method of addressing one or more electrodes (or "test sites") across multiple rows and columns of a microarray. The patent also covers a method for storing th...

Scientists discover unique microbe in California's largest lake

Scientists at the University of Oregon havediscovered a form of blue-green algae that lives independently inCalifornia's Salton Sea, using near-infrared light for photosynthesis,according to an article published in this week's online edition of theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)."This new strain of Acaryochloris is unique because it is able to liveon its own," says UO...

An entropy-based gene selection method for cancer classification using microarray data

Accurate diagnosis of cancer subtypes remains a challenging problem. Building classifiers based on gene expression data is a promising approach; yet the selection of non-redundant but relevant genes is difficult. The selected gene set should be small enough to allow diagnosis even in regular clinical laboratories and ideally identify genes involved in cancer-specific regulatory pathways. Here an...

International trial of two microbicides begins

A large, multisite trial designed to examine the safety and preliminary effectiveness of two candidate topical microbicides to prevent HIV infection has opened to volunteer enrollment. The trial, sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, represents a partnership among various research institutions in Africa and the U...

New Mixing Method for Microchip-Sized Labs

"Because up to 75 percent of breast cancerpatients have an abnormality in a specific cell signaling pathway,drugs that target different molecules along that pathway may beespecially effective for treating the disease, says a researcher fromThe University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center." A clearer picture is now emergingabout the importance of the phosphatidylinositol 3 kinase...

Devising Nano Vision for an Optical Microscope

Contrary to conventional wisdom, technology’s advance into the vanishingly small realm of molecules and atoms may not be out of sight for the venerable optical microscope, after all. In fact, research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) suggests that a hybrid version of the optical microscope might be able to image and measure features smaller than 10 nanometers—a tiny fr...

Harnessing microbes, one by one, to build a better nanoworld

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...

Ophthalmologists Use Artificial Silicon Retina Microchip To Treat Vision Loss

Ophthalmologists at Rush University Medical Center implanted Artificial Silicon Retina (ASR) microchips in the eyes of five patients to treat vision loss caused by retinitis pigmentosa (RP). The implant is a silicon microchip 2mm in diameter and one-thousandth of an inch thick, less than the thickness of a human hair. Four patients had surgery Tuesday, January 25. The fifth patient is sch...

Genrate: a generative model that finds and scores new genes and exons in genomic microarray data

Abstract : Recently, researchers have made some progress in using microarrays to validate predicted exons in genome sequence and find new gene structures. However, current methods rely on separately making threshold-based decisions on intensity of expression, similarity of expression profiles, and arrangements of exons in the genome. We have taken a Bayesian approach and developed GenRate,...

Ophthalmologists implant five patients with artificial silicon retina microchip

Ophthalmologists at Rush University Medical Center implanted Artificial Silicon Retina (ASR) microchips in the eyes of five patients to treat vision loss caused by retinitis pigmentosa (RP). The implant is a silicon microchip 2mm in diameter and one-thousandth of an inch thick, less than the thickness of a human hair. Four patients had surgery Tuesday, January 25. The fifth patient is sch...

Protein offers way to stop microscopic parasites in their tracks

Scientists may have found a way to throw a wrench in the transmissions of several speed demons of the parasite world. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Harvard University have identified a protein that could help them develop drugs to stop or slow cell invasion by malaria and other parasites known as apicomplexans. Results of the study will appear in...

Affymetrix Licenses Microfluidics Technology From Caliper Life Sciences

Caliper Life Sciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: CALP) and Affymetrix, Inc. (Nasdaq: AFFX) today announced that Caliper has issued Affymetrix a non-exclusive license to use a portion of Caliper's microfluidics patent estate with Affymetrix' GeneChip(R) microarray technologies. The license extends to the manufacture and sale of GeneChip brand products in all areas of application, including research, diagnosti...

Microbial fuel cell: High yield hydrogen source and wastewater cleaner

Using a new electrically-assisted microbial fuel cell (MFC) that does not require oxygen, Penn State environmental engineers and a scientist at Ion Power Inc. have developed the first process that enables bacteria to coax four times as much hydrogen directly out of biomass than can be generated typically by fermentation alone. Dr. Bruce Logan, the Kappe professor of environmental engineeri...

Microbial forensics: The next great forensic challenge

Deliberately spreading disease among the enemy has been occasionally practiced over hundreds of years. But modern bioterrorism is more chilling than ever because of rapidly expanding knowledge about infectious diseases and biotoxins and their potential to wreak havoc in complex, interdependent societies. The nation is in the process of developing a strong microbial forensic program to attribute a...

Leprosy microbes lead scientists to immune discovery

With the unusual opportunity that human leprosy infections provide for study of human immune responses, scientists have discovered how the body's early warning system prompts a rapid immune response by two separate armies of defensive cells. The finding helps explain why, when threatened by microbes like the leprosy bug, this initial defense sometimes succeeds in limiting the damage, but in other...

Different microarray systems more alike than previously thought

A multicenter comparison of equipment that can analyze the expression of thousands of genes at once to create a genetic "fingerprint," suggests these different microarray technologies are more alike than once thought. Published in the May 2005 issue of Nature Methods, the study provides new hope that the mounds of information generated by these systems might actually be comparable, even t...

Cooperation is key—a new way of looking at MicroRNA and how it controls gene expression

A group of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute is reporting a discovery that sheds light on an area of research fundamental to everything from the normal processes that govern the everyday life of human cells to the aberrant mechanisms that underlie many diseases, including cancer and septic shock. The discovery concerns tiny fragments of RNA known as microRNA and their relations...

Agilent Technologies releases probe sequence, annotation information for all its commercial gene expression microarrays

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) today announced that it has for the first time released the chip design, probe sequence and annotation information for all of its microarrays. The release of this information is expected to improve cross-laboratory experimental research and cross-platform data comparison. "Full release of the probe sequences is an admirable and responsible position for A...

Could microbes solve Russia's chemical weapons conundrum?

One of nature's most versatile microorganisms ?a bacterium called Pseudomonas putida ?could help mop up the toxic by-products caused by the destruction of the chemical weapon mustard, write Russian researchers in Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology (http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jctb) this month. At 40,000 tonnes, Russia houses the world's largest stockpile of chemical wa...

Microscopes at microscopic size

Traditionally if scientists wanted to look at something small they would put a sample under a microscope but now researchers have managed to shrink the microscope itself to the size of a single human cell. An interdisciplinary research team, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council (BBSRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) have developed...

Characterizing Skin Cancer by Microarrays

Microarray technology can be used to identify each stage of skin cancer tumor (melanoma) progression, according to a newly published report. Christopher Haqq and colleagues dissected a large primary melanoma into r...

Microarrays as phenotype

Microarrays provide a method of quantifying the expression and order of genes in a particular genome -- acting as a surrogate measure of cell physiology, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in a report that appears online today in the journal Nature Genetics. "Microarray data are good phenotypes to determine the order of genes and are a good surrogate measure of cell status," sa...

DOE JGI launches IMG public online microbial genome data clearinghouse

As the microbial world comes to light through DNA sequencing, the new Integrated Microbial Genomes (IMG) data management system of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI) will deliver valuable information for the benefit of the global research community. "The IMG system is an essential enhancement to the computational toolkit supported by DOE," said Dr. Aristides...

NYU, Rockefeller researchers find complexity of regulation by microRNA genes

Collaborating researchers at New York University and Rockefeller University have discovered that microRNA genes, which have recently been shown to have key roles in gene regulation, can team up and regulate target genes in mammals. MicroRNAs are a recently discovered large class of regulatory, non-coding genes, which bind to partially complementary sites in target messenger RNA to regulate their...

Agilent Technologies introduces advanced zebrafish, mouse microarrays for stem cell and developmental biology research

Which is more likely to happen - you being in a car wreck or being bitten by a shark? Those who answered that cars are greater killers win a free trip to the beach. It's really no contest, says a Texas A&M University professor. Your chances of being in a wreck are far greater than being a shark's lunch, says John McEachran, a professor of wildlife and fishery sciences who has studied...

Genome study of beneficial microbe may help boost plant health

In a study expected to greatly benefit crop plants, scientists have deciphered the genome of a root- and seed-dwelling bacterium that protects plants from diseases. The research provides clues to better explain how the helpful microbe, Pseudomonas fluorescens Pf-5, naturally safeguards roots and seeds from infection by harmful microbes that cause plant diseases. The genome paper will be p...

The making and breaking of microtubules

Microtubules are active protein polymers critical to the structure and function of cells and the process of cell division. In a living cell their growing ends constantly elongate and retreat in a thrashing frenzy of polymerization and depolymerization, like the writhing snakes of Medusa's hair. Known prosaically as "dynamic instability," this ongoing rapid growth and shrinkage is key to the diver...

MicroRNAs play a big part in gene regulation - and evolution

Regulating when and where certain proteins are made is crucial to the normal functioning of living things. To make proteins, information from DNA is transcribed into RNA molecules and then translated into the amino acids building blocks of proteins. But not all genes code for proteins--some make RNA molecules called microRNAs. These small RNA molecules interfere with--and therefore control--the p...

Proteomics brings researchers closer to understanding microbes that produce acid mine drainage

A pink, bacterial scum on the floor of an abandoned mine seems an unlikely place to study community development, but a biological breakthrough is allowing University of California, Berkeley, researchers to probe the give and take in this microbial mat. Last year, the UC Berkeley team joined with the Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute to pluck out the genomes of the five dominan...

Molecular steps involved in the creation of gene-silencing microRNAs identified

First discovered only a few brief years ago, microRNAs are small, remarkably powerful molecules that appear to play a pivotal role in gene silencing, one of the body's main strategies for regulating its genome. A scant 22 nucleotides in length, miRNAs appear to work by binding to and somehow interfering with messenger RNA, itself responsible for translating genes into proteins. But how do...

Deep thinking: Scientists sequence a cold-loving marine microbe

At home in the deep, dark Arctic Ocean, the marine bacterium Colwellia psychrerythraea 34H keeps very cool--typically below 5° degrees Celsius. How does the bacterium function in this frigid environment? To find out, scientists at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) and collaborators have sequenced and analyzed C. psychrerythraea's genome. That genome analysis, posted in the Proceedi...

Researchers use 3-D imaging system to unveil swimming behavior of microscopic plankton

From the surface, the ocean appears to be vast and uniform. But beneath the surface, tiny animals called zooplankton are swept into clusters and patches by ocean currents. The very survival of many zooplankton predators--from invertebrates to whales--and the success of fishermen catches can depend on their success at finding those patches. For almost a century ocean scientists have suspect...

Researchers Discover That Microbes Can Produce Miniature Electrical Wires

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have discovered a tiny biological structure that is highly electrically conductive. This breakthrough helps describe how microorganisms can clean up groundwater and produce electricity from renewable resources. It may also have applications in the emerging field of nanotechnology, which develops advanced materials and devices in extremely sma...