Globally, agriculture faces mounting pressures. These are driven by climate change, land degradation, labor shortages, supply chain disruptions and the demand for food from a growing population.
Computational chemists at the University of Amsterdam's Van 't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences have developed a comprehensive software suite to create accurate models of DNA in biomolecular assemblies. Called MDNA, the user-friendly molecular modeling toolkit helps biochemists, molecular biologists, bioinformaticians, and biophysicists to visualize and analyze DNA structures and perform accurate simulations.
Food waste is a nagging problem that weighs heavily on global food production, distribution and sales industries—but an emerging generation of AI sensors is providing a raft of fresh solutions. The embrace of AI in food industries has been swift, which is why Flinders University researchers have worked with an international research team to build the first comprehensive overview of AI technologies involved in the food industry.
Hookworms, intestinal parasites that infect hundreds of millions of people in under-resourced tropical regions around the globe, have evolved to survive inside the human gut for years, secreting molecules that enable coexistence with their hosts. Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have harnessed that biological mechanism for potential human benefit, engineering a hookworm to produce and deliver a drug within a living host.
Networks of protein fibers play important roles in living cells. To understand the dynamical behavior of these networks, model networks are needed to perform in vitro studies. However, fabrication of protein networks similar to those in cells has proved difficult, as current methods could affect the biological function of these proteins—ultimately impacting our understanding of any findings.
In a significant advance in biological quantum sensing, a research team led by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has discovered and tested a new mechanism of action in which proteins can be controlled with radio waves. In doing so, they influence a sensitive quantum state known as spin and make it visible via light. In the future, such findings could help detect and even direct biochemical processes in cells simply from the outside using radio waves.
Researchers from the University of Cambridge have created a new DNA sequencing method called Chem-map, which can detect where and how small molecule drugs interact with the targeted genome. The method enables researchers to conduct in situ mapping of small molecule-genome interactions with unprecedented precision. Chem-map was used in the study to determine the direct […]
It's a mild early spring morning at the historic Cottonwood Field Station in western South Dakota, and a herd of 150 Angus steers are scheduled to move to a new pasture rotation. Moving cattle can be tricky and often requires some extra help, electrical fencing and quite a bit of time. But today, there are no extra ranchers, no gates swinging open and no temporary fences in place.
A research team from the School of Biomedical Sciences at the LKS Faculty of Medicine, the University of Hong Kong (HKUMed), has achieved a significant advance in biotechnology that could revolutionize treatment strategies for neurodegenerative diseases. The team has developed a novel tool called RNA Segment Editing (RSE), which functions like a "cut-and-patch" tool for RNA. This innovative approach allows scientists to precisely remove or replace faulty segments of genetic messages within living cells without permanently changing a person's DNA.
Cell function is determined by how DNA is expressed into proteins. That process includes two main steps—transcription, when messenger RNA (mRNA) makes copies of active genes; and translation, when mRNA guides protein assembly.