The Wellcome Trust is a major funder of biomedical research in the UK. But part of its remit is improving the public's understanding of health and medical research. This mostly means educational and public outreach efforts. But each year, the Trust also runs a contest that recognizes the best images of all things biological. The winners run from the microscopic to the every day. Many of the winning images aren't clearly medical in nature (unless you plan to practice medicine on a squid). But the compelling visuals may just be enough to induce someone to want to learn more and start searching the Internet for details. And, if so, that'll be in keeping with the Wellcome's mission. Those of you familiar with biology will know you're looking at an eye. But it's the process that created this eye that's amazing. These are the blood vessels that supply the eye, imaged after a contrast agent was injected into them. The images were used to create a 3D model, which was then printed to produce this. This is the aftermath of a cell division, in which the DNA, condensed into thick rods during division, unwound again and distorted the membranes that contain … Continue reading →

March 10, 2017 Drosophila suzukii, the spotted-wing Drosophila, on a wild cherry. Credit: Elora Gompel In contrast to other members of the Drosophila family, the spotted-wing fly D. suzukii deposits its eggs in ripe fruits. Biologists from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich have now elucidated the sensory basis of their ability to exploit a novel ecological niche. Unlike most species of the genus Drosophila, which deposit their eggs in fermenting fruits, the so-called spotted-wing Drosophila, D. suzukii, lays its eggs in ripe fruits. This apparently minor difference in behavior can have catastrophic consequences for commercial fruit-growers, and has made the species into a crop pest. For the puncture made by the female's ovipositor facilitates infections, while the hatched larvae feed on the fruit pulp. As a result, these infestations cause enormous damage to soft-fruit crops, such as cherries, raspberries, grapes and strawberries. LMU biologists led by Professor Nicolas Gompel, in a collaboration with the groups of Dr. Benjamin Prud'homme (CNRS, France) and Professor Ilona Grunwald Kadow (Technical University, Munich), have begun to explore the genetic basis for this unusual egg-laying behavior. Their findings appear in the latest issue of the journal Current Biology. The researchers combined behavioral tests and genetic methods … Continue reading →

Greater insight into basic biology of pain will reveal non-addictive remedies Science Daily The U.S. medical community needs a better understanding of the biology of pain and how it plays out in individuals to be able to combat the national epidemic of addiction to painkillers, according to researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at ... See the rest here: Greater insight into basic biology of pain will reveal non-addictive remedies - Science Daily … Continue reading →

March 9, 2017 Sacharomyces cerevisiae cells in DIC microscopy. Credit: Wikipedia. Led by Tianjin University Professor Ying-Jin Yuan, TJU's synthetic biology team has completed the synthesis of redesigned yeast chromosomes synV and synX with the two studies published in Science on March 10, 2017. The publications are part of the effort to chemically synthesize the designer yeast genome (Sc 2.0), in collaboration with NYU and John Hopkins in the US, Tsinghua University, BGI-Shenzhen in China, the University of Edinburgh in the UK, and the Institut Pasteur and Sorbonne Universits in France, as well as industry partners. TJU is keen to integrate frontier science into student training. During the synthesis of the designer chromosome SynV, the "Build-A-Genome (BAG) China" course played a crucial role. In this innovative educational course, sixty-one students participated in the construction of building blocks and minichunks for synthetic chromosome V, although the majority of the students had little or no experience in DNA synthesis before. Through the BAG training, they advanced experimental skills, and obtained first-hand experiences essential to promote their trouble-shooting ability. Several students became specialists in DNA synthesis and constructed DNA segments with significant complicated sequences. A selection of them went on to continue their … Continue reading →