Science and Health News

A collaborative research team involving scientists at King’s College London, and funded in part by Alzheimer’s Research UK and the Medical Research Council (MRC), has discovered a panel of molecular markers that may be able to identify how well a person is ageing.

The ability to custom design biological materials such as protein and DNA opens up technological possibilities that were unimaginable just a few decades ago. For example, synthetic structures made of DNA could one day be used to deliver cancer drugs directly to tumor cells, and customized proteins could be designed to specifically attack a certain kind of virus. Although researchers have already made such structures out of DNA or protein alone, a Caltech team recently created—for the first time—a synthetic structure made of both protein and DNA. Combining the two molecule types into one biomaterial opens the door to numerous applications

Biologists at the University of York have taken an important step in making it possible to clean millions of hectares of land contaminated by explosives.

Working 55 hours or more per week is linked to a 33% greater risk of stroke and a more modest (13%) increased risk of developing coronary heart disease compared with working a standard 35 to 40 hour week, according to the largest study in this field so far, led by UCL and published in The Lancet.

Rice University scientists modify E. coli to cooperate, control protein expression

A new technology that will dramatically enhance investigations of epigenomes, the machinery that turns on and off genes and a very prominent field of study in diseases such as stem cell differentiation, inflammation and cancer, is reported on today in the research journal Nature Methods.

The advance could facilitate the discovery of new antidepressants and drugs for illnesses involving serotonin

Researchers have created unusually intelligent mice by altering a single gene and as a result the mice were also less likely to feel anxiety or recall fear. The study, led by the University of Leeds and Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, is published today in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.