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    Category Biology/Biotechnology

    Origin of Life: Which Came First?

    June 25, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Biology/Biotechnology

    Proteins with primitive arginine-based proteins (right) might have been capable of self-assembly and phase separation to create cell-like droplets

    An experiment in recreating primordial proteins solves a long-standing riddle. What did the very first proteins look like — those that appeared on Earth around 3.7 billion years ago? Prof. Dan Tawfik of the Weizmann Institute of Science and Prof. Norman Metanis of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have reconstructed protein sequences that may well resemble those ancestors of modern proteins, and their research suggests a way that these primitive proteins could have progressed to forming living cells. Their findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

    The proteins encoded in a cell’s genet...

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    Hamsters develop protective Immunity to COVID-19 and are Protected by Convalescent Sera

    June 24, 2020, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Three x-rays of hamster lungs
    Images of the lungs of hamsters before and after infection with SARS-CoV-2, from CT scans at UW Veterinary Care at the School of Veterinary Medicine. In blue are the trachea and bronchi. In red is a region of gas in the cavity just outside the lungs, indicating severe lung damage in the affected animal. The opaque clouding is similar to the “ground glass” appearance in the lungs of some human patients sick with COVID-19. Signs of severe disease in the lungs of hamsters became apparent within eight days of infection and began to improve by 10 days. The effects lingered for longer, as evident on the scan taken 16 days after initial infection. COURTESY OF YOSHIHIRO KAWAOKA

    In an animal model for COVID-19 that shares important features of human disease, scientists at the University...

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    Viruses can Steal our Genetic Code to create new Human-Virus Genes

    June 23, 2020, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Highlights
    d A mechanism of hybrid gene birth is employed by many
    families of RNA viruses
    d Human RNA and viral RNA encode new genes together
    d Hybrid genes either make extensions of viral proteins or
    novel proteins (UFOs)
    d Human-virus genes and proteins play roles in pathogenesis
    and are conserved

    Like a scene out of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” a virus infects a host and converts it into a factory for making more copies of itself. Now researchers have shown that a large group of viruses, including the influenza viruses and other serious pathogens, steal genetic signals from their hosts to expand their own genomes.

    This finding is presented in a study published online today and in print June 25 in Cell...

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    Renewed Hope for Treatment of Pain and Depression

    June 23, 2020, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Fig. 3
    SAR analysis of adrenorphin variants on ACKR3 and classical opioid receptors.

    Novel molecule targets a newly discovered opioid receptor with atypical properties and holds promise for alternative therapeutic strategies.

    Researchers at the Department of Infection and Immunity of the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH) developed LIH383, a novel molecule that binds to and blocks a previously unknown opioid receptor in the brain, thereby modulating the levels of opioid peptides produced in the central nervous system (CNS) and potentiating their natural painkilling and antidepressant properties...

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