reader comments 24 Antibodies are incredibly useful. Lots of recently developed drugs rely on antibodies that bind to and block the activity of specific proteins. They’re also great research tools, allowing us to identify proteins within cells, purify both proteins and cells, and so on. Therapeutic antibodies have provided our first defenses against emerging viruses ..
Tag : biochemistry
Enlarge / Smart insulin has the potential to make injections far less frequent. reader comments 13 People with type I diabetes have to inject themselves multiple times a day with manufactured insulin to maintain healthy levels of the hormone, as their bodies do not naturally produce enough. The injections also have to be timed in ..
reader comments 34 with For most proteins, structure is function. The complex three-dimensional shapes that proteins adopt create folds and pockets that can accomplish the remarkably improbable: driving chemical reactions that would otherwise never happen or binding to a single chemical inside the complex environment of a cell. Protein structure is so important that there’s ..
Enlarge / All steroids past and present share the complex ringed structure but differ in terms of the atoms attached to those rings. reader comments 25 with All of the organisms we can see around us—the plants, animals, and fungi—are eukaryotes composed of complex cells. Their cells have many internal structures enclosed in membranes, which ..
Enlarge / A Moon jellyfish. reader comments 19 with Share this story The sensation of hunger seems pretty simple on the surface, but behind the scenes, it involves complicated networks of sending and signaling, with multiple hormones that influence whether we decide to have another serving or not. The ability to know when to stop ..
reader comments 6 with Share this story The pros and cons of moonlighting—taking up an extra job in addition to full-time employment—are hotly debated. But in biology, moonlighting is not uncommon, as individual proteins often perform multiple functions. For many years, scientists knew that the Unusual Floral Organ (UFO) protein seems to do some moonlighting. ..
reader comments 86 with Share this story Psychedelic drugs are often used for entertainment purposes. But there have been some recent indications that they can be effective against PTSD and treatment-resistant depression. Figuring out whether these substances work as medicinal drugs can be challenging because (as one researcher helpfully pointed out) it’s difficult to do ..
Aurich Lawson/T. Clements et al. reader comments 34 with 25 posters participating Share this story Sometimes science can be a messy endeavor—not to mention “disgusting and smelly.” That’s how British researchers described their experiments monitoring dead sea bass carcasses as they rotted over the course of 70 days. In the process, they gained some fascinating ..
reader comments 69 with 49 posters participating Share this story Medical authorities have spent years convincing people to use sunscreen to limit their exposure to UV light. But that effort has had a bit of a setback, as several locations have recently banned the use of sunblocks by beachgoers. Those bans took effect after local ..
Enlarge / The three-dimensional structures of proteins provide many opportunities for specific interactions. reader comments 29 with 24 posters participating Share this story Thanks in part to the large range of shapes they can adopt and the chemical environments those shapes create, proteins can perform an amazing number of functions. But there are many proteins ..