Slide: 1 / of 1. Caption: Evan Mills Namrata Udeshi knows how to globally analyze the proteomics of human cells. Youd be forgiven for having no idea what that means or why it mattersits a complicated technique that youd need years of post-graduate training to master. But for now, just know its important for disease research. Udeshi is a group leader in a proteomics lab at MITs Broad Institute, working long days to understand the intricacies of cellular life. Shes also the mother of two toddlers, with almost no free time. And yet, every day, she spends hours learning the programming language Python. Ever since I started my post-doc, I realized that it would be great to get data analysis automated, says Udeshi. But I didnt know how to program, so I would go and find someone who knew and ask them for help. That was annoying and limiting. Now, shes enrolled in an intro to programming class through Harvard Extension School. Udeshi is hardly alone: When I asked a handful of post-doc biologists eating brunch in Boston last week how many were teaching themselves to code, every hand went up. They all realized that their curriculum was missing a … Continue reading →

The first time geneticist Jef Boeke designed a synthetic chromosome, he sometimes wrote and edited its DNA sequence in a Microsoft Word document. His goal was to create a slightly altered version of yeast chromosome 9, the shortest of the 16 chromosomes that make up the organisms genome and contain all the operating instructions for life. He started with the short chromosomes right arm, but even this task was daunting. Its DNA code consisted of 90,000 letters, the molecules referred to as A, C, G, and T that are arranged in particular sequence to encode biological function. Painstakingly, Boeke went through the code, making changes that he thought would be scientifically interesting or that would make the chromosome more stable. This misery drove him to seek help from student Sarah Richardson in his neighbor Joel Baders lab, who wrote scripts to automate some of the most tedious steps. This was the embryonic beginning of what was to become the genome design software called BioStudio. Once Boeke finished his design, the synthetic chromosome was constructed by taking short snippets of manufactured DNA and stringing them together. Then Boekes team checked the design by taking a normal yeast cell, swapping out its … Continue reading →

Science Daily Behavioral biology: Ripeness is all -- ScienceDaily Science Daily In contrast to other members of the Drosophila family, the spotted-wing fly D. suzukii deposits its eggs in ripe fruits. Biologists have now elucidated the sensory ... and more » See the article here: Behavioral biology: Ripeness is all -- ScienceDaily - Science Daily … Continue reading →

March 9, 2017 Credit: CC0 Public Domain 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 the University of Pennsylvania, in Science this week. Specifically, they call for a shift in emphasis in drug development towards understanding how people differ in their response to pain medications to develop more precise, safer, and less addictive treatments. "Pain is a syndrome that is poorly understood and research on pain is poorly resourced relative to its prevalence and cost, especially in terms of shattered lives and lost productivity," writes Tilo Grosser, MD, an associate professor of Pharmacology, and Garret A. FitzGerald, MD, FRS, director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics at Penn, along with Clifford J. Woolf, from the Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. This plan is especially urgent given no analgesic drugs directed at novel targets have been approved in the past five years. The authors reason that the opioid epidemic has attained the scale of the HIV/AIDS epidemic at its peak in the mid-1990s, … Continue reading →

It would appear that, given the name of one of Shakespeares most recognizable female characters, director Desdemona Chiang was predestined for a life in the theater. Chiang, who directs Lydia Diamonds play Smart People, which begins performances Wednesday at Long Wharf Theatre, doesnt refute the theory when she explains that she landed in the theater by accident. I had no intention of going into theater, said Chiang before a recent rehearsal. Desdemona is actually my given name. But I went to Berkeley for my undergrad and was a molecular and cell biology major. I had planned to go to medical school. But during my first year of college I was told by my adviser that I would have to take an arts requirement class. I thought the easiest class to take would be an intro to acting class because it didnt have a lecture, it didnt have a paper. I would just show up and play improv games the whole semester. It was the easiest A I could take. If fate lured Chiang into a life in the theater with the prospect of an easy A, it locked her in with the promise of endearing friendships. The theater kids were … Continue reading →

For more than 50 years the Animal Behavior Society has endeavored to promote the study of animal behavior on a biological level. Every year a handful of scientists who have made distinguished contributions to the study of the subject are chosen to be fellows. This year, College of Science Professor of Biology Vladimir Pravosudov was one of the few. Pravosudov studies how small birds adapt to harsh environments. His current work focuses on chickadees, which can survive in the bleakest of wintery climates. "They've always been of interest to me because these birds can actually live very far north, so they can survive with only a few hours of light, and then the rest is all-day sleeping," he said. "they cache a lot of food when its available in the fall, and they recover it in the winter when it could be minus 40 degrees Celsius, which is very cold. These birds use spatial memory to find these food caches, so they have amazing memories." After comparing chickadees across a range of climates and geographies, Pravosudov has found that a chickadee's memory is adapted for its environment, and in more extreme circumstances - where food caching is necessary - the … Continue reading →