Systems

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,...

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...

Institute for Systems Biology Symposium Addresses Need for Better Computational Tools

The Institute for Systems Biology announced today at its 2005 international symposium on Computational Challenges in Systems Biology that ISB's Human Proteome Folding Project launched on IBM's World Community Grid in November 2004 has already predicted 50,000 protein structures. "This project showcases the enormous power of collaborations," stated Dr. Richard Bonneau, senior scientist at t...

Scientists Propose Sweeping Changes to Naming of Bird Neurosystems to Acknowledge Their True Brainpower

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted approval to Mylan Technologies, Inc., for the first generic version of Alza Corporation's Duragesic Patch (Fentanyl Transdermal System) used to treat patients suffering from severe chronic pain that cannot be managed with alternative analgesics. When applied to the skin, this patch technology delivers fentanyl, an opioid pain medication that is s...

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...

Integration of Agilent's MS technology, Proteome Systems' software to help scientists in proteomics research

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) and Proteome Systems, a leading international proteomics company, today announced they have signed a marketing agreement to collaborate on an integrated solution for the analysis of glycoproteins, molecules that are important in the study of many diseases, including cancer, influenza and arthritis. Under the agreement, Proteome Systems will make its GlycomIQ so...

Changing ecosystems throw scientists mega-challenges

Accelerating environmental changes have presented humanity with some significant scientific and engineering challenges, according to the new National Science Foundation (NSF) report, Pathways to the Future: Complex Environmental Systems: Synthesis for Earth, Life and Society in the 21st Century. Among the changes the report cites are rapid shifts in climate and ecosystems, the degradation...

Scripps scientists find potential for catastrophic shifts in Pacific ecosystems

Opening the door to a new way of understanding ocean processes and managing and protecting marine resources, a group of researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, has developed a groundbreaking analysis of the North Pacific Ocean and how dramatic changes can unfold across its waters. The study, published in the May 19 issue of the journal...

A new way to share models of biological systems

Today sees the launch of BioModels, the world's first database of annotated biological models. BioModels is the result of a collaboration led by the European Bioinformatics Institute (UK) and the SBML Team, an international group that develops open-source standards to describe biological systems. Other contributors include the Keck Graduate Institute (USA), the Systems Biology Institute (Japan) a...

Motor transport in bio-nano systems

Molecular motors are nanoscale engines which move along very thin rod-like filaments and, in this way, drive the heavy traffic of molecular cargo within biological cells. Both motors and filaments can be isolated from the cells and used to construct biomimetic transport systems. In order to increase the flux of the cargo transport, it would be necessary to increase the number of motors that contr...

Invitrogen Launches i-Path -- A Unique Systems Biology Platform at BIO 2005

Scientists in Belgium have discovered how to clone human embryos from eggs that have been matured in the laboratory. Their discovery should make it easier for scientists to create embryonic stem cell lines from cloned embryos and develop them to provide eggs and sperm for infertile couples, the 21st annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology heard today (Monday...

Nanoscale method for investigating living systems

By observing how tiny specks of crystal move through the layers of a biological membrane, a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison electrical and computer engineers has devised a new method for investigating living systems on the molecular level. The discovery could lead to an entirely new level of manipulation, imaging and understanding of the inner workings of cells. The specks are know...

'Cookbook recipes' would cure disease with nontoxic DNA delivery systems

Scientists studying the structure and interaction of negatively charged lipids and DNA molecules have created a "cookbook" for a class of nontoxic DNA delivery systems that will assist doctors and clinicians in the safe and effective delivery of genetic medicine. As reported in the Aug. 9 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers have now performed a careful...

Divergent mating systems and parental conflict as a barrier to hybridization in flowering plants

Sexual reproduction can be thought of as a cooperative process in which two individuals come together to produce a new individual. It can also be viewed as a process in which two parties with differing interests, investment, and background interact to produce a new individual. From the former perspective, parental interests are unified (both wish to produce vigorous offspring), while the latter s...

Avian influenza virus in mammals spreads beyond the site of infection to other organ systems

Researchers at Erasmus Medical Center have demonstrated systemic spread of avian influenza virus in cats infected by respiratory, digestive, and cat-to-cat contact. The paper by Rimmelzwaan et al., "Influenza A virus (H5N1) infection in cats causes systemic disease with potential novel routes of virus spread within and between hosts," appears in the January issue of The American Journal of Patho...

How can we protect patients with weakened immune systems from influenza?

The flu is bad enough for healthy people, but the disease can place a special burden on those with weakened immune systems, such as patients on chemotherapy. A five-year, $10.7 million federal grant to The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia will support research to determine how adults and children with impaired immune systems may be uniquely vulnerable to influenza, and will seek better ways to...

Ocean acidification threatens cold-water coral ecosystems

Corals don't only occur in warm, sun-drenched, tropical seas; some species are found at depths of three miles or more in cold, dark waters throughout the world's oceans. Some cold-water coral reefs are home to more than 1,300 species of animals, a diversity rivaling some better known tropical coral reefs. Until now, scientists believed bottom trawling ?a commercial fishing method in which vessels...

Heal thyself: Systems biology model reveals how cells avoid becoming cancerous

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego and three other institutions have described for the first time a web of inter-related responses that cells use to avoid becoming diseased or cancerous after being exposed to a powerful chemical mutagen. The group led by UCSD bioengineering professor Trey Ideker describe in the May 19 issue of Science an elaborate system of gene control that...

Beaver dams create healthy downstream ecosystems

Beavers, long known for their beneficial effects on the environment near their dams, are also critical to maintaining healthy ecosystems downstream. Researchers have found that ponds created by beaver dams raised downstream groundwater levels in the Colorado River valley, keeping soil water levels high and providing moisture to plants in the otherwise dry valley bottom. The results will be publis...

'Killer' B cells demonstrate evolutionary link between fish and mammal immune systems

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine have discovered a unique evolutionary link between the immune systems of fish and mammals in the form of a primitive version of B cells, white blood cells of the immune system. Their studies link the evolution of the adaptive immune system in mammals, where B cells produce antibodies to fight infection, to the more pri...

First Biodiversity Census of coral reef ecosystems in the NW Hawaiian Islands

As part of the international Census of Marine Life (CoML), a team of world renown scientists will embark on an expedition to explore coral reef biodiversity in the largest fully protected marine area in the world--the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument. Led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, with funding fro...

Seagrass ecosystems at a 'global crisis'

An international team of scientists is calling for a targeted global conservation effort to preserve seagrasses and their ecological services for the world’s coastal ecosystems, according to an article published in the December issue of Bioscience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS). The article "A Global Crisis for Seagrass Ecosystems" cites the critical r...

Study warns deep-sea mining may pose serious threat to fragile marine ecosystems

Undersea habitats supporting rare and potentially valuable organisms are at risk from seafloor mining scheduled to begin within this decade, says a new study led by a University of Toronto Mississauga geologist. Mining of massive sulphide deposits near "black smokers"—undersea hydrothermal vent systems that spew 350-degree Celsius water into the frigid deep-sea environment, and support su...

Global survey of lizards reveals greater abundance of animals on islands than on mainland ecosystems

A comprehensive survey of lizards on islands around the world has confirmed what island biologists and seafaring explorers have long observed: Animals on islands are much more abundant than their counterparts on the mainland. Besides confirming that longstanding observation, the study signals an alarm for island populations in a rapidly warming world. It suggests that climate change may ha...

New designer lipid-like peptide with lipid nanostructures for drug delivery systems

Scientists from Institute of Biophysics and Nanosystems Research (IBN), Austrian Academy of Sciences and of Centre for Biomedical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA report the study of “Tuning Curvature and Stability of Monoolein Bilayers by Designer Lipid-Like Peptide Surfactants” in the May 30th issue of the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE. Their finding...

Penn researchers link cell's protein recycling systems

Many age-related neurological diseases are associated with defective proteins accumulating in nerve cells, suggesting that the cell’s normal disposal mechanisms are not operating correctly. Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered a molecular link between the cell’s two major pathways for breaking down proteins and have succeeded in using this link...