Scientists from the Mount Sinai School Medicine (New York) recently publish an interesting paper about the similarities between two viruses, namely the Spanish influenza virus and H1N1. The Spanish influenza virus caused a incredible number of death in 1918 during the first world war, worldwide. This virus is formerly extinct and for this reason it could be used as a bioterrorist agent.

mRNA translation is one of crucial process in cellular metabolism. Several approaches have been developed by cells to perfectly regulate the translation. microRNAs bind mRNA and determine its half life, while numerous proteins directly bind the mRNA and favor or avoid the interaction with ribosomes.

It has been recently published on Nature Journal a sort of survey about the satisfaction level of scientists in different countries. By using fixed values ranged between 0 and 1 the average mark was 0.861 that keeps in consideration all the parameters evaluated in this survey.

Several trials have been already done to produce a three dimensional support to grow cells. Collagen matrix, gelatin, nanofibers are some examples and each of them has some problems or limitations that have not allowed to be selected as a method of choice for three dimensional cell culture up to date. The advantage of three dimensional cell culture is to restore the normal environment where one cell is located into the tissue or in organism.

Cyclosporin A is an immunosuppressive drug currently used after transplantation in order to reduce the risk of rejection. It has been noted that numerous patients who received transplants have been affected by squamous cell carcinomas, with a higher frequency than normal population. The molecular explanation for this so negative side effect of Cyclosporin A has been recently published on Nature journal.

Plasmids are the most important tool in molecular biology for many reasons. Firstly, they make possible to produce proteins or portions of proteins in whatever system, from bacteria to mammalian, by cloning techniques. In order to share vectors and plasmid a novel system has been set up. Addgene is a no profit repository in which is possible to deposit your plasmids, as well as to request what you are looking for.

The movement of ions inside or outside the cellular membrane is crucial to maintain pH homeostasis, the membrane potential and in some cases they may regulate also the entrance of drugs, glucose and so on. The chloride ion moves into the cells through the intracellular member of the chloride channels family. Chloride moves into the organelle lumen toward a positive electrical potential firstly generated by the activity of proton pump.

The libraries of the University of California sent a document in which they proposed to boycott the Nature Publishing Group journals. They observed that NPG has excessively increased the price of license and the further increase of 400% planned for 2011 is not sustainable by the libraries, currently under economic distress. Everyone knows that NPG is one of the most important scientific editorial groups worldwide.

Imaging technologies become every day more important in scientific world. Several times in this blog we have talked about the advances of microscopy, fluorescence detection and in general imaging. Now we would like to analyze some problems related to data sharing. In 2008, the Journal of Cell Biology started the JBC Data Viewer, an online repository for original images in life sciences. The novelty of this tool is the possibility to preserve and share some information about instruments used, acquisition settings, image size and resolution.

The current way to determine the cause of disease is finding mutations via DNA sequencing. In order to reduce costs only coding regions are sequenced and analyzed. Unfortunately, several Mendelian traits that can be the basis for specific diseases are not present in coding regions. Therefore, the sequencing of the whole genome might contribute better understand the causal variant of diseases.