mimics

Bacterial protein mimics host to cripple defenses

Like a wolf in sheep's clothing, a protein from a disease-causing bacterium slips into plant cells and imitates a key host protein in order to cripple the plant's defenses. This discovery, reported in this week's Science Express by researchers at the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) for Plant Research, advances the understanding of a disease mechanism common to plants, animals, and people. T...

Largest computational biology simulation mimics life’s most essential nanomachine

With preliminary results from a study in Botswana, Harvard School of Public Health researchers have found that people with HIV-1 subtype C in resource-poor settings, who receive antiretroviral (ARV) therapy, can achieve comparable results to those in the developed world. A fully supported health care delivery system and infrastructure help ensure this success, according to data published in Novem...

Engineered mouse mimics cognitive aspects of schizophrenia

Researchers have developed a mouse strain in which the abnormal activity of the dopamine machinery in a specific part of the brain causes cognitive and behavioral impairments mimicking those in human schizophrenics. The achievement is important, because creating an animal model of any schizophrenic characteristics has not been done before. And schizophrenia's genetic and physiological comp...

Poison dart frog mimics gain when birds learn to stay away

Studying neotropical poison dart frogs, biologists at the University of Texas at Austin uncovered a new way that the frog species can evolve to look similar, and it hinges on the way predators learn to avoid the toxic, brightly colored amphibians. In the Mar. 8 issue of Nature, Catherine Darst and Molly Cummings show that a harmless, colorful frog living in the Amazonian rainforest gets p...

Mouse mimics chronic leukemia, will aid drug development

A study by cancer researchers here reveals that a new strain of mice offers the first real animal model for an incurable form of chronic leukemia and should greatly aid the development of new drugs for the disease. The mouse, called the TCL-1 transgenic mouse, develops a malignancy that closely mimics chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). The lack of an animal model has greatly hampered th...

MIT's ocean model precisely mimics microbes' life cycles

Scientists at MIT have created an ocean model so realistic that the virtual forests of diverse microscopic plants they "sowed" have grown in population patterns that precisely mimic their real-world counterparts. This model of the ocean is the first to reflect the vast diversity of the invisible forests living in our oceans-tiny, single-celled green plants that dominate the ocean and produ...

Researchers create artificial enzyme that mimics the body's internal engine

The protein cytochrome c oxidase (CcO) is the ultimate enzyme responsible for all aerobic life on Earth, from bacteria to people. It is also a crucial component of the cellular machinery that generates energy in our body. With such impressive credentials, you might expect that scientists would have a clear understanding of how CcO works. But they don't, according to James P. Collman, professor em...

How to lose weight and not go hungry: HU researcher develops drug that mimics feeling of 'fullness'

Millions of people the world over suffer today from obesity, yet there is no “magic bullet” that has yet provided a universally accepted solution. However, a young researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem feels he has come up with a practical weight loss solution for the obese person without his having to...