An open mind and collaborative spirit have taken Hans Clevers on a journey from medicine to developmental biology, gastroenterology, cancer, and stem cells.

Jumping genes in bdelloid rotifers are tamped down by DNA methylation performed by an enzyme pilfered from bacteria roughly 60 million years ago, a study finds.

Alan Aderem earned his PhD while under house arrest for protesting apartheid in South Africa. His early political involvement has guided his scientific focus, encouraging fellow systems biologists to study immunology and infectious diseases.

Twice yearly, World Health Organization health officials meet to strategize against influenza, a malady that kills at least 250,000 people each year. In a chess match of sorts, they work to predict their opponent's next move, in this case by modifying vaccines to compensate for changes in the critical viral antigen hemagglutinin, which triggers the host's long-term immune memory. It takes several months to manufacture and distribute flu vaccines in sufficient quantities to inoculate vulnerabl

Researchers aim to unravel the molecular mechanisms by which a single genotype gives rise to diverse castes in eusocial organisms.

One warning came in black-and-white in 1993: A U.S. Congressional Office of Technology Assessment report projected that releasing 100 kilograms of aerosolized anthrax spores upwind of the U.S. capital could kill between 130,000 and 3 million people-a lethality at least matching that of a hydrogen bomb. Last year, a U.S. Justice Department exercise revealed that discharging pneumonic plague in Denver could create 3,700 or more cases, with an estimated 950 or more deaths within a week.1 Then, acco

As more researchers flock to the popular field, observers fear a widening gap between supply and demand When scientists convene in New Orleans next week for the 33rd annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB), nine symposia, 20 minisymposia, and countless informal gatherings are sure to focus on the recent achievements and continuing progress in this exciting and rapidly expanding scientific field. There is likely to be little excitement in the air, however, concerning the

To an ever-increasing degree, explanation in biology is reduced to art expression in the language of DNA sequences. At least, a necessary condition for the interpretation of many problems in evolution, genetics, virology, immunology teratology, or cancer is the elucidation of a message in the well-known ATGC alphabet. Furthermore, the power of biotechnology rests on manufacturing blueprints of the same ilk. To a degree " unprecedented in biological history, we can describe the agenda for much

Image: ©2001 MacMillan Publishers Ltd.  PLURIPOTENT-CELL PIPELINE: To obtain embryonic germ cells, researchers culture primordial germ cells (PGCs) dissected from the genital ridge. If left in situ, a PGC develops into spermatozoa or ova after its imprints have been erased and reestablished. Embryonic stem cells come from the blastocyst's inner cell mass. (Reprinted with permission, Nature 414:122-8, 2001) Because the science is hard and the politics mean, progress in understanding

By Jeffrey M. Perkel Surpassing the Law of Averages How to expose the behaviors of genes, RNA, proteins, and metabolites in single cells. By necessity or convenience, almost everything we know about biochemistry and molecular biology derives from bulk behavior: From gene regulation to Michaelis-Menten kinetics, we understand biology in terms of what the “average” cell in a population does. But, as Jonathan Weissman of the University of Califo