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All Is Fair in Love and Warfarin

Small Things Considered: by Moselio Schaechter (2 days ago):
by Shigeki Miyake-Stoner and Spencer Diamond Warfarin, up close and personal. Source. It turns out the drug warfarin has nothing to do with war, but it does involve a recently discovered link between bacteria and humans. Warfarin derives its name from WARF, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation where it was first developed, and -arin from its coumarin-like structure. Warfarin is...

Synthetic Biology: Ten Years Old, Ten Years On

The Loom: by Carl Zimmer (5 days ago):

E. coli that can count? In my new podcast, I talk to James Collins, an engineer-turned-biologist who helped usher in the science of synthetic biology ten years ago. We talk about the challenges of getting cells to do what you want them to, and what synthetic biology will look like in 2020. Check it out.

I For One Welcome Our Microbial Overlords

The Loom: by Carl Zimmer (6 days ago):

Can the bacteria in our bodies control our behavior in the same way a puppetmaster pulls the strings of a marionette? I tremble to report that this wonderfully creepy possibility may be true.

The human body is, to some extent, just a luxury cruise liner for microbes. They board the SS Homo sapiens when we’re born and settle into their assigned quarters–the skin, the tongue, the nostrils, the throat, the stomach, the genitals, the gut–and then we carry them wherever we go. Some of microbes deboard when we shed our skin or use the restroom; others board at new ports when we shake someone’s hand or down a spoonful of yogurt. Just as on a luxury cruise liner, our passengers eat well. They feed on the food we eat, or on the compounds we produce. While the biggest luxury lines may be able to carry a few thousand people, we can handle many more passengers. Although the total mass of our microbes is just a few pounds, the tiny size of their cells means that we each carry about 100 trillion microbes–outnumbering our own cells by more than ten to one.

Mother?s Love

Small Things Considered: by Moselio Schaechter (2 weeks ago):
by Elio Binary fission is a most impressive invention. In one fell swoop, it ensures that progeny cells are born alike and endowed with the same potential for growth and survival. Simple as it sounds, it must have taken considerable evolutionary contortions to make it function so well throughout the living world. But there are cells that have adopted an...

PATRIC project seeking subcontractors

EcoliHub blog » E. coli news: by jimhu (3 weeks ago):

The PATRIC BRC is looking for applications for Driving Biological Projects to be subcontracts to their grant from NIAID. Letters of intent are due on February 28, 2010.

New EcoliHub website release

EcoliHub blog » E. coli news: by jimhu (4 weeks ago):

We invite you to try the new EcoliHub website, now available at:

http://www.ecolihub.org