Biochemistry – Page 5
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FeatureOmega-3s and brain health
Modern diets can leave us short on essential fatty acids. Barbara Pinho looks into how this is affecting our health and our brains in particular
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ResearchSurprise discovery as clam found to be producing complex antibiotic
Erythromycin was previously believed to be only synthesised by bacteria
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FeatureCelebrating Louis Pasteur’s bicentenary
Mike Sutton reflects on the dramatic discoveries of Louis Pasteur, born 200 years ago
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OpinionMartin Chalfie: ‘I decided I wasn’t going to be a scientist’
The Nobel prizewinner on breaking a promise to himself and the test he had to pass to receive his medal
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FeatureHow click conquered chemistry
Katrina Krämer tells the story of how click and bioorthogonal chemistry came to win the 2022 Nobel prize
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OpinionNobel vision
Looking beyond the here-and-now let click chemistry open up a whole new world of possibility
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OpinionA citizen science app for teaching botany
App-based tools support botanical literacy and citizen science
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ResearchTheories on origin of enzymes’ catalytic power united
Transition state stabilisation and ground state destabilisation both reduce the energy barrier by enhancing charge density but vary in their timing
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ResearchMystery of how plants make strychnine solved 75 years after characterisation
Three-quarters of a century after Robinson and Woodward cracked structure chemists unravel poison’s biosynthesis
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OpinionFrom prebiotic soup to fine-grained RNA world
Theories about how life emerged need to be closely attuned to conditions on the early Earth
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OpinionAn idea that clicked
Bioorthogonal reactions – doing chemistry inside living cells without blasting everything in sight – are no mean feat
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FeatureThe bioorthogonal revolution
A set of reactions operating silently inside live cells or whole animals are lighting up chemical biology and inspiring new medicines, James Mitchell Crow finds
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FeatureThe incredible antibodies of sharks, llamas and camels
Sharks and llamas share a strange quirk of their immune systems. Hayley Bennett finds out how their ‘nanobodies’ could help us tackle Covid and a host of other diseases
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FeatureLife’s chemistry goes through the looking glass
Chemists were taught that natural systems only use L-amino acids. Andy Extance finds out just how wrong that is proving
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NewsChemistry Nobel laureate Sidney Altman dies at 82
Canadian–American molecular biologist won the 1989 prize for discovering RNA’s catalytic ability
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FeatureA decade of CAR-T cell therapy
Nina Notman looks at the revolutionary treatment already taking on cancer, now aiming for wider use
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ResearchSea sponges own unique chemistry goes beyond that of their bacterial guests
Biologically potent compounds can be made by sea sponges themselves
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ResearchEpigenetic MRI offers a way to understand how the brain learns
First tests in humans could be as little as year away, researchers claim
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ResearchElectric field of ATP synthase suggests enzyme has functions beyond catalysis
Study links energy-making enzyme with proton migration in ATP formation, and reinforces predictions that its catalytic efficiency is around 90%
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FeatureSequencing one cell at a time
New advances that allow scientists to uncover the molecular differences between individual cells could revolutionise medicine, Ian le Guillou finds