Latest European Molecular Biology Laboratory Stories

SHANGHAI, Aug. 4 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Shanghai ChemPartner Co., Ltd., (ChemPartner) a wholly owned subsidiary of ShangPharma Corporation, announced today that it has moved its drug discovery collaboration with ELARA Pharmaceuticals to a new level. ChemPartner will provide fully integrated services in the areas of DMPK, pharmacology and toxicology for ELARA's lead oncology programs. Members of the joint project team from both sides will work closely together to design and execute a...

EMBL development may provide powerful new test for inflammatory lung diseasesChronic inflammatory lung diseases like chronic bronchitis and emphysema are a major global health problem, and the fourth leading cause of death and disability in developed countries, with smoking accounting for 90% of the risk for developing them. Work by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and its Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit (MMPU) with the University of Heidelberg, Germany, has...

Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the University of Heidelberg, Germany, have come a step closer to understanding how cholesterol levels are regulated. In a study published today in the journal Cell Metabolism, the researchers identified 20 genes that are involved in this process. Besides giving scientists a better idea of where to look to uncover the mechanisms that ensure cholesterol balance is maintained, the discovery could lead to new treatments for...

Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the University Clinic Heidelberg, Germany, have produced a three-dimensional reconstruction of HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), which shows the structure of the immature form of the virus at unprecedented detail. Immature HIV is a precursor of the infectious virus, which can cause AIDS. The study, published in the 22-26 June online edition of PNAS, describes how the protein coat that packages the virus' genetic material...

Scientists discover that sugar tags on nuclear proteins have an important developmental functionProteins are the executive agents that carry out all processes in a cell. Their activity is controlled and modified with the help of small chemical tags that can be dynamically added to and removed from the protein. 25 years after its first discovery, researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg have now gained insight into the role of one of these tags, a small...

Recycling is important not only on a global scale, but also at the cellular level, since key molecules tend to be available in limited numbers. This means a cell needs to have efficient recycling mechanisms. Researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and Heidelberg University, Germany, have now uncovered the first step in the recycling of a crucial molecular tag which ensures the instructions encoded in our genes are correctly carried out. The study, published this week...

Scientists in Europe announced Wednesday that they had discovered how the flu virus is able to overtake cells and use them to duplicate itself.Their findings available in the British-based journal Nature, the researchers stated that they found a small part of an enzyme that craftily works and could become useful to drug manufactures.They targeted the enzyme polymerase, which guides the cell's organs to produce viral proteins.To make this happen, the polymerase creates a genetic tag, or a cap,...

Researchers unravel how the very first eyes in evolution might have worked and how they guide the swimming of marine plankton towards lightLarvae of marine invertebrates "“ worms, sponges, jellyfish - have the simplest eyes that exist. They consist of no more than two cells: a photoreceptor cell and a pigment cell. These minimal eyes, called eyespots, resemble the 'proto-eyes' suggested by Charles Darwin as the first eyes to appear in animal evolution. They cannot form images but allow the...

The first few hours of an embryo developing were caught with the help of a new high-powered microscope. The event marked the first time scientists could catch this process in vertebrates, and watched a zebrafish develop from a single cell into an embryo with a beating heart.  Researchers created a three-dimensional digital reconstruction of the tiny, developing fish known as zebra danio. They are popular research subjects because they are cheaper to breed than mice and share biological...

An enzyme that binds differently to male and female sex chromosomes helps males to make up for their X chromosome shortageResearchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) in Hinxton, UK, have revealed new insights into how sex chromosomes are regulated. A chromatin modifying enzyme helps compensate for the fact that males have only one copy of the sex chromosome X, while females have two. The...