By Kelly Rae Chi Vital Signs New frontiers in the search for novel, noninvasive biomarkers Apparatus for collecting exhaled breath condensates to identify protein biomarkers that differ between children with and without asthma Courtesy of VITO The one-size-fits-all approach to therapies is quickly becoming a thing of the past, as drug developers begin stepping up to the challenge of personalized medicine, and regulatory agencies scramble to keep up. As the search

Tricks for probing a cell’s moving parts

By Kelly Rae Chi Freeze-Frame Tricks for probing a cell’s moving parts Close-up of an actin tail (green) with a kinase involved in catalyzing actin mobility (red) at the tip Curr Biol, 20:697-702, 2010 ln the daily life of a cell, vesicles and organelles shuttle along filament tracks, DNA unwinds, and mRNA is delivered to its proper destination. Cell motility—the movement of cells and their internal parts—is crucial to biology, often a matte

When mice mate with multiple partners, their male offspring evolve higher quality sperm

By Kelly Rae Chi Plant Matter Prowess Rooting out problems in biofuel production Plant matter is widely thought of as a promising alternative fuel source to petroleum. Of course, the key to unlocking lignocellulose—the main building block of plant cell walls and the most plentiful organic material on the planet—is to break down its hearty matrix of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin among others, and to do it as simply as possible. Turning pl

By Kelly Rae Chi Let the Data Flow Rethink your data analysis tools for flow cytometry. Since its invention in the 1960s, flow cytometry—a technique used to identify and sort specific populations of cells—has extended its reach beyond immunol-ogists to those performing diverse assays in both the basic and clinical research arenas. Whether you are using the technology to detect rare stem cells or to diagnose blood disorders, the vast improvement

By Kelly Rae Chi Uwe Ohler: The promoter coder © Alex maness Assistant Professor, Computational Biology. Age: 37 Uwe Ohler spent a year in Berlin serving meals at a homeless shelter after finishing his undergraduate degree in computer science at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg. It was the mid-1990s, the Human Genome Project was well underway, and Ohler felt like he was missing out on something. He always took an applied

By Kelly Rae Chi Sizing up Nanoparticles How to put nanoparticles to work in drug development. Nanoparticles are increasingly found in drug development. Researchers are using them in designing treatments for tumors, infections, and brain diseases, as well as for imaging techniques that enhance visualization of molecular-scale events in brain tissue and culture dishes. But so far, says biochemist Michael Sailor of the University of Californi

The New Face of Cancer An unusual institute is applying the newest concepts in life sciences—stem cell therapies, personalized medicine—to one of the oldest diseases. By Kelly Rae Chi The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) does not take a typical approach to the disease. Many cancer researchers toil away individually, only sharing their results after peer review. But for cancer researchers to receive some of the roughly $39 million the

Signaling Star As one of the 25 most highly cited scientists for a decade, Tony Pawson has proposed ideas in cell signaling that are now shaping treatment strategies for some of the world’s most important diseases. By Kelly Rae Chi © 2010 Icon Photography Inc./www.iconphotoinc.com In the early 1980s, Tony Pawson made a discovery that would eventually shape scientists’ views of the proteins involved in cell signaling an

By Kelly Rae Chi Automate to Market Scientists-turned-entrepreneurs give their tips on creating an automated lab tool—and profiting from the fruits of their labors Automation is an area where life scientists often see opportunities for innovation; doing the same technique day in and day out unsurprisingly brings to mind ways to ease and speed the process. If you’ve invented an automated tool, colleagues in other labs could very likely benefi

By Kelly Rae Chi Behavior in Action Tools and techniques for tracking mammalian behavior. Even the seemingly simplest mammalian behaviors, such as grooming one’s offspring, involve a complex series of tiny movements that may be invisible to the human eye. But in studying those behaviors, how to break them down into reliable, measurable components? “All of these advances in technology give us data that [weren’t] available