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A new process for creating patterns of individual molecules on a surface combines control of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) and a soft lithography technique known as microcontact printing. Scientists use the process, known as "microcontact insertion printing" to build surfaces that have molecules with specific functions inserted at known intervals on a surface.

Researchers have constructed a protein out of amino acids not found in natural proteins, discovering that they can form a complex, stable structure that closely resembles a natural protein. Their findings could help scientists design drugs that look and act like real proteins but won't be degraded by enzymes or targeted by the immune system, as natural proteins are.

This week, for the first time in humans, a heart failure patient received adult stem cells – taken from his own adipose (fat) tissue – which were processed and injected directly into the heart muscle with a special catheter. Francisco Fernandez-Avilés, M.D. performed the procedure in Madrid. The Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital is leading the collaborative clinical trial which will involve 30 patients.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a novel computational image-forming technique for optical microscopy that can produce crisp, three-dimensional images from blurry, out-of-focus data.

Many human proteins are not as good as they might be because the gene sequences that code for them have a double role which slows down the rate at which they evolve, according to new research published in PLoS Biology.

By tweaking these dual role regions, scientists could develop gene therapy techniques that produce proteins that are even better than those found in nature, and could one day be used to help people recover from genetic disorders.

Wouldn't it be great if we could get computer chips to grow on trees? Or at least use the specific bonds of DNA molecules to get nanostructures to grow themselves right in the test tube? This technology could be used to build everything from tiny electronics components to machines that sequence DNA. This is shown in a dissertation from Mid Sweden University.

During development and during pathological processes in the adult, cells are constantly changing their function. One, well-characterized, cellular transition that occurs during development, as well as during wound healing, tissue fibrosis, and tumor metastasis, is the transition from an epithelial cell to a mesenchymal cell (often a fibroblast).

Carnegie Mellon University's Philip LeDuc predicts the use of artificially created cells could be a potential new therapeutic approach for treating diseases in an ever-changing world. LeDuc, an assistant professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering, penned an article for the January edition of Nature Nanotechnology Journal about the efficacy of using man-made cells to treat diseases without injecting drugs.

For Duke University theoretical chemist David Beratan, the results of his 15 years of studying how electrons make their way through some important protein molecules can be summed up with an analogy: how do big city dwellers get from here to there?

Expectant parent' desire to see images of their unborn children has given rise to commercial companies offering keepsake ultrasound scans without medical supervision, often referred to as "boutique ultrasonography."

In a special report in this week's British Medical Journal, journalist Geoff Watts considers whether this non-medical use of the technique can be justified.

The time is ripe for scientific organizations to adopt codes of ethics, according to a scientist and bioethicist from Wake Forest University School of Medicine in the current issue of Science and Engineering Ethics.

"Medical practice and human subject research is influenced by the Hippocratic tradition," said Nancy L. Jones, Ph.D., "but no similar code of ethics has been formalized for the life and biomedical sciences. Like the Hippocratic oath, a code of ethics for the life sciences can provide a continual standard to shape the ethical practice of science."

A Georgia Tech physics group has discovered how and why the electrical conductance of metal nanowires changes as their length varies. In a collaborative investigation performed by an experimental team and a theoretical physics team, the group discovered that measured fluctuations in the smallest nanowires’ conductance are caused by a pair of atoms, known as a dimer, shuttling back and forth between the bulk electrical leads. Determining the structural properties of nanowires is a big challenge facing the future construction of nanodevices and nanotechnology.

Investigators from the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR) and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) have made a breakthrough in identifying functional elements in the human genome, according to a report published online today in Nature Genetics.

Portable inspection devices that detect food safety and quality problems are being developed by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists. Recent food safety outbreaks highlight the need for "space-age" ways to prevent such problems at every step in the food production process -- from farm field to grocery store or restaurant.

Women who become pregnant in spring are more vulnerable to preterm birth than those who conceive in other seasons, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh. Results of a large study of such seasonal variation in preterm birth, or birth prior to 37 weeks gestation, are being presented at the 27th annual meeting of the Society of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, being held today through Saturday at the Hilton San Francisco and Towers in California.