When a whale dies, it sinks to the seafloor and becomes food for an entire ecosystem. Researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have discovered previously unknown species that feed only on dead whales - and use DNA technology to show that the species diversity in our oceans may be higher than previously thought.

- We now begin to understand how signalling proteins recognize and transport to certain areas of the cell and get a more clear insight on the mechanism of major cellular processes such as cell signalling and growth. This valuable knowledge could be used in the future to understand and cure disease such as depression and Alzheimer's explains Associate Professor Dimitrios Stamou, Nano-Science Center and Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology, who led the work.

An investigative drug deprived non-Hodgkin lymphoma cells of their ability to survive too long and multiply too fast, according to an early study published recently in the journal Experimental Hematology.

Scientists working to develop a vaccine for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) report they have created the first antigen that induces protective antibodies capable of blocking infection of human cells by genetically-diverse strains of HIV. The new antigen differs from previously-tested vaccines by virtue of its chemically-activated property that enables close sharing of electrons and produces strong covalent bonding. Researchers used a mouse model to generate the antibodies. The report by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston is online and will appear in a print issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry in November.

Investigators at Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) have identified novel cleavage sites for the enzyme caspase-3 (an enzyme that proteolytically cleaves target proteins). Using an advanced proteomic technique called N-terminomics, Guy Salvesen, Ph.D., professor and director of the Apoptosis and Cell Death Research program of Burnham's NCI-designated Cancer Center, and colleagues determined the cleavage sites on target proteins and found, contrary to previous understanding, that caspase-3 targets α-helices as well as unstructured loops. In addition, researchers found that caspase-3 and the substrates it binds to co-evolved. The paper was published on September 20 in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.