biology news 撮要

Chemists Track How Drug Changes, Blocks Flu Virus

ScienceDaily (Feb. 7, 2008) — An anti-virus drug attacks influenza A by changing the motion and structure of a proton channel necessary for the virus to infect healthy cells, according to a recently published research paper by two Iowa State University chemists.







Transparent Adult Zebra Fish Will Make Human Biology Even Clearer



ScienceDaily (Feb. 7, 2008) — Zebrafish are genetically similar to humans and are good models for human biology and disease. Now, researchers at Children's Hospital Boston have created a zebrafish that is transparent throughout its life. The new fish allows scientists to directly view its internal organs, and observe processes like tumor metastasis and blood production after bone-marrow transplant in a living organism.



Giving Mice A Cold Virus Offers Hope Of New Asthma Treatments

ScienceDaily (Feb. 7, 2008) — Scientists have been able to recreate rhinovirus infection, which is behind most common colds, in a small animal for the first time. For fifty years since they were discovered, it had been thought that rhinoviruses could only infect humans and chimpanzees. But now a team of scientists led by Professor Sebastian Johnston at the MRC/Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma at Imperial College London, has been able to infect mice with rhinoviruses.







'Molecular Glue' Cohesin Acts As Regulator Of Gene Expression



ScienceDaily (Feb. 7, 2008) — Ten years ago, researchers at the IMP - a basic research institute in Vienna - discovered a fundamental and amazingly plausible mechanism of cell division. They identified a protein complex, which, as a ring-shaped molecule, slides over the doubled chromosomes and holds precisely these together until the time they again separate. Because of its function as molecular glue, the protein complex was given the name cohesin.