Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have developed a simple and inexpensive method to screen small synthetic molecules and pull out a handful that might treat cancer and other diseases less expensively than current methods.

As people age, their cells become less efficient at getting rid of damaged protein — resulting in a buildup of toxic material that is especially pronounced in Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders.

When you make a new material on a nano scale how can you see what you have made? A team of scientists has made a significant step toward overcoming this major challenge faced by nanotechnology scientists.

According to new research, old ideas about water behavior are all wet. Ubiquitous on Earth, water also has been found in comets, on Mars and in molecular clouds in interstellar space. Now, scientists say this common fluid is not as well understood as we thought.

Discovery may lead to new treatments for cystic fibrosis, other inherited diseases Researchers in Japan and Canada have discovered a key component of the quality control mechanism that operates inside human cells – sometimes too well.

  A new microscope system that can take 3-D pictures of an embryonic mouse organ over 24 to 48 hours has shown Duke Medical Center researchers the first glimpse of the formation of blood vessels during development.

Chemists from UCLA and the University of Washington have succeeded in creating “designer enzymes,” a major milestone in computational chemistry and protein engineering. Designer enzymes will have applications for defense against biological warfare, by deactivating pathogenic biological agents, and for creating more effective medications.

Can we create new life out of our digital universe?” asks Craig Venter. And his answer is, yes, and pretty soon. He walks the TED2008 audience through his latest research into “fourth-generation fuels” — biologically created fuels with CO2 as their feedstock.

The Nucleic Acid Programmable Protein Array (NAPPA) was developed at the Harvard Institute of Proteomics and led to the spin-out of Auguron about a year ago. The firm says this technology enables prot

Bacteria have evolved complex mechanisms called quorum sensing systems that provide for cell-to-cell communication, an adaptation that allows them to wait until their population grows large enough before mounting an attack on a host or competing for nutrients.