Bacteria that live in the digestive tracts of animals may influence the adaptive trajectories of their hosts.

Identification of new archaea species elucidates the domain’s unique  biology and sheds light on its relationship to eukaryotes.

All multicellular creatures interact with bacteria, but some have taken the relationship to another level with highly specialized structures that house, feed, and exploit the tiny organisms.

As much as rainforests or deep-sea vents, the human gut holds rich stores of microbial chemicals that should be mined for their pharmacological potential.

Saliva tests screen staff and students at University of Illinois; Study ranks species most susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection; COVID-19 clinical trials test drugs that inhibit kinin system

Author: SIMON SILVER Department of Microbiology & Immunology University of Illinois Chicago The Luddites have mostly won during the 15 years of recombinant DNA research and debates. An FDA report concludes that bovine growth hormone presents no increased health risk. Yet the combination of building political bases and mounting irrational fear of genetic engineering means that we will probably continue to be protected from this unreal danger. Our students have questioning minds, so this compilat

Next-generation sequencing has identified scores of new microorganisms, but getting even abundant bacterial species to grow in the lab has proven challenging.

Gut bacteria may be the missing piece that explains the connection between diet and cancer risk.

With news about Dolly and embryonic stem cells the stuff of cocktail party conversation, cloning a transgenic sheep or cow seems like child's play. The recipe is simple: Insert a pet gene into the nucleus of a cultured cell, fuse it with an enucleated egg, and voilà--a cow with high-octane milk. But incorporating genes into nuclear chromosomes isn't the only road to fame and fortune. Animals and plants have other sources of genetic information--their respiratory mitochondria and photosy

FIGURE 1:Courtesy of Kendra RumbaughEukaryotic and prokaryotic signaling molecules have similar functions. Mammalian steroid hormones bind to cognate nuclear hormone receptors; Pseudomonas aeruginosa autoinducer N-3-oxododecanoyl homoserine lactone acts as a ligand for the transcriptional activator LasR and is essential for cell-to-cell communication resulting in biofilm formation.Mammals possess sophisticated endocrine networks in which hormonal signals modulate hundreds of biological effects s