Danielle Gerhard, PhD | Mar 22, 2024 | 10+ min read
With the help of directed evolution, scientists inch closer to developing viral vectors that can cross the human blood-brain barrier to deliver gene therapy.
Image: Courtesy of Elliott Marguiles PIPS ON PARADE: Researchers used a MultiPipMaker to show the alignments, expressed as percent identity plots, between a human reference sequence and several other species. This is a 20 kb region surrounding exon 2 of the MET gene. Gap-free alignable segments are represented as horizontal lines along the human reference sequence; the line's height represents the identity of that alignment. Aristotle envisioned humanity as the pinnacle of a "Great Chai
Many species of birds and other vertebrates form pair bonds and mate with just one other individual for much of their lives. But the unions don’t always work out. Scientists want to know the underlying factors.
Molecules, cells, or vertebrates—when individuals move and act as a single unit, surprisingly complex behaviors arise that hint at the origins of multicellularity.
COOPERATIVE CELLS:Courtesy of Michael CarrollThe evolution of complex biologic organisms began with the symbiotic relationship between pro- and eukaryotes (I). This relationship gave rise to mitochondria (II), and the resulting diversity of unicellular organisms (III) led to their metabolic cooperativity (IV) mediated by ligand-receptor interactions and cell-cell signaling. Natural selection generated an increasing complexity (V). Failed homeostatic signaling (VI) recapitulates hylogeny/ontogeny