Prof. Lawrence Lustig Prof. Lawrence Lustig at the University School of Medicine San Francisco and associates have reported that the newly born mice that lack the gene encoding the transporter VGLUT3 are deaf because the absence of this gene renders inner hair cells of the ear’s cochlea incapable of sending electrical signals to the brain. This exciting piece of news pu

Living organisms synthesize different small-molecule organic compounds, also known as chemical chaperones to deal with extreme stress conditions. These chemicals can protect biomolecules from the altered environmental conditions and keep them functional. Urea is one of these chemical chaperones which is used by several marine vertebrates to deal with osmotic pressure associate with

In an article entitled, “RNF20 and USP44 Regulate Stem Cell Differentiation by Modulating H2B Monoubiquitylation”, published in June 8, 2012, issue of Molecular Cell 46: 662–673, the lead author Gilad Fuchs with sixteen other associates from nine research groups demonstrated a potential molecular mechanism that connects between cancer and the faulty diffe

In an open access article entitled, “Magnitude and sign epistasis among deleterious mutations in a positive-sense plant RNA virus,” published online 11 April 2012, in Heredity (2012) 109, 71–77, J Lalić and S F Elena have shown how epistatic interactions between mutations in viral genomes determine traits such as resistance to antiviral drugs,

A seminar on Environmental Risk Assessment of Genetically Engineered Plants was held on July 13-14, 2012 at BRAC-CDM, Rajendrapur, Gazipur, Bangladesh under the auspices of the South Asia Biosafety Program in collaboration with BARC and the DoE, Bangladesh. USAID also helped fund the workshop. Speakers included Dr. Andrew Roberts of the Center for Environmental Risk Assessment (CERA

In an article entitled, “Widespread adoption of Bt cotton and insecticide decrease promotes biocontrol services” published in 19th July issue of Nature, vol. 487, pp. 362-365, Yanhui Lu and 4 others.Over the past 20 years, vast plantings of transgenic crops producing insecticidal proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) have helped control severa

In the April issue of the Indian J. Biotech 134-141 an, article under the caption, Isolation of lectin gene and development of resistant Nicotiana tabacum L. against Spodoptera litura was published. In that article Singh, Rashmi and six other associates have been  reported to have isolated a plant insecticidal protein known to be offering

In a PNAS article entitled, “Conserved genetic determinant of motor organ identity in Medicago truncatula and related legume,’ published online on the 16th July, Jianghua and six of his associates affiliated to 4 different institutes have suggested that by swelling and shrinking, the cells at opposite sides of the pulvinus are involved in directi

A seminar on, “Small Compounds Regulate Scaffold Protein RACK1A Mediated Cellular Stress Signaling Pathways in Arabidopsis and rice” will be delivered by Dr. Hemayet Ullah, Associate Professor, Biology, Dept. at Howad University on Monday, the 6th of August at 11 a.m. in KAL gallery, at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, DU. All interested l

Opportunity for Ph.D. Studentship in Zurich in evolutionary biology