Word: molecular
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Molecular biologists still know so little about the human genome, in fact, that even with some 85% of the sequence published on the HGP's GenBank website for every scientist in the world to see, nobody has even a ballpark figure for how many genes humans have. Before this week, the betting ranged from as few as 28,000 to as many as 140,000. Now it looks more like...
Proof at the genetic level that origin means more than location is coming in. Researchers at Stanford have been studying liver, breast, prostate and lung cancers for clues to their telltale molecular fingerprints. Using microarrays to sense which genes are turned on in sample tissues, says geneticist Charles Perou, the Stanford team has discovered that most of the genes expressed by both normal breast cells and primary-breast-cancer cells are similar, and so are cells for normal lung tissue and lung cancer, normal prostate and prostate cancer, and so on--which should ultimately give doctors biochemical identifiers to guide...
Following his lead, HGS scientists are ignoring most of the genetic code and concentrating on the mRNA that puts the code into action. During the 1990s the company amassed a huge library of mRNA and used microarrays to see which of these molecular snippets was active in disease. Haseltine's scientists were able to isolate 10 proteins, made from strands of mRNA, that are active in the healing of intractable wounds. Of these, nine were discarded because they may promote cancer...
Even before they finished decoding the human genome, scientists began the next and far more challenging step in explaining the molecular underpinnings of life. It's called proteomics--the cataloging and analysis of every protein in the human body...
...often share structural characteristics that are reflected in the genes that encode them. Structural biologist Stephen Burley of Rockefeller University estimates that the maximum number of distinct shapes may be as few as 5,000. The NIGMS hopes to construct a lexicon of shapes--barrels, doughnuts, globular spheres, molecular zippers and so on--that when mixed and matched will spell the shape of any gene's product. About 1,000 of these structures--and the genes that code for them--have already been cataloged...