The emerging field of metagenomics, where the DNA of entire communities of microbes is studied simultaneously, presents the greatest opportunity -- perhaps since the invention of the microscope -- to revolutionize understanding of the microbial world, says a new report from the National Research Council. The report calls for a new Global Metagenomics Initiative to drive advances in the field in the same way that the Human Genome Project advanced the mapping of our genetic code.

Alan Garen, professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale has received a $100,000 award from the Prostate Cancer Foundation to expand research on the delivery of a targeted therapy for prostate cancer using nanoparticles.

Scientists at the MIT Media Lab have invented a way to reversibly silence brain cells using pulses of yellow light, offering the prospect of controlling the haywire neuron activity that occurs in diseases such as epilepsy and Parkinson's disease.

Heart attack patients who received an new intravenous adult stem cell therapy, Provacel™, experienced a lower number of adverse events, such as cardiac arrhythmias, and had significant improvements in heart, lung and global function compared to those who received a placebo, according to six-month Phase I study data presented at the American College of Cardiology's Innovation in Intervention: i2Summit in New Orleans on March 25.

Those small fruit flies buzzing around your bananas are more than pests—they may be allies in a fruitful search for clues to human diseases caused when genes malfunction.

As more and more corn grain is diverted to make ethanol, there have been public concerns about food shortages. However, ethanol made from cellulosic materials instead of corn grain, renders the food vs. fuel debate moot, according to research by a Michigan State University ethanol expert.

Until a decade ago, scientists categorized microorganisms almost exclusively by their physical characteristics: how they looked, what they ate, and the by-products they produced. With the advent of genomic sequencing and genetic analysis in the 1990s, our understanding of the relationships between different microorganisms fundamentally changed. In light of this new knowledge, what exactly is the definition of a microbial species, and how should microbiologists be categorizing microorganisms? These questions are the focus of a new report released by the American Academy of Microbiology (AAM) entitled Reconciling Microbial Systematics and Genomics.

Blacksburg, Va., March 26, 2007 – Common bacteria with an overt reaction to toxins that cause oxidative stress show promise as a biosensor to predict public health threats.

In its first laboratory tests on human tissue, a light-based probe built by researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering almost instantly detected the earliest signs of cancer in cells that line internal organs.