Latest Lambda phage Stories
WAGENINGEN, The Netherlands, May 23, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Micreos of The Netherlands has attracted additional capital for accelerated growth of its phage business. Altria Ventures, the strategic investment arm of Altria Group, has acquired a5% stake in Micreos, viewed as global leader in phage technology for targeted control of bacteria. Phage technology is set to change the world, because it is safe, simple, natural and has no side effects. Unlike antibiotics and...
Anyone who's tried a weekend home improvement project knows that to do a job right, you've got to have the right tools. For cells, these "tools" are proteins encoded by genes. The right genes for the job are turned on only in the specific cells where they are needed. And every cell in your body has a specific job to do. Cells in your pancreas have to produce insulin, while cells in the retina of your eye must be able to sense light and color. Like using the wrong tool for the job, if the...
Recently a research paper titled "Expanding the Diversity of Mycobacteriophages: Insights into Genome Architecture and Evolution" was published in PLoS ONE, a peer-reviewed online journal published by the Public Library of Science.The authors included 12 Washington University undergraduates who had participated as freshman in the inaugural Phage Hunters course at Washington University in St. Louis.Phages are viruses that infect bacteria by injecting genetic material into them with a...
Members of a population of identical cells often "choose" different fates, even though they exist in identical conditions.The difference may rest with the "hidden variables" within the cells, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in a report that appears in the current issue of the journal Cell.That finding, tested in bacterial cells of Escherichia coli infected with viruses called bacteriophage lambda, challenges the commonly held belief that the differences in...
U.S. university researchers say they've uncovered clues from a virus quirk that may lead to new ways to kill E. coli bacteria, which can be fatal to humans. The team from Penn State University said they learned how and why a particular virus injects an RNA polymerase -- an enzyme catalyzing polymer -- into an E. coli bacterial cell, the university said in a new release. The results help advance understanding of infection tactics used by viruses attacking bacterial cells -- which may lead to...
In another step to decipher information in the human genome, scientists have discovered the location and sequence of over 10,000 DNA regions that function as genetic on-off switches, or "promoters" in human fibroblasts. Fibroblasts are relatively generic, easily maintained, human cells that form connective tissues throughout the body. By knowing the specific sequences of DNA that control the nearly 8,000 active genes in fibroblasts, scientists can tease apart the biochemical...
By comparing 140 sequenced bacterial genomes, researchers have uncovered a system for regulating genes essential to bacterial replication - and they did it solely by computer keystrokes and mouse clicks. Mikhail Gelfand, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute international research scholar at the Institute for Information Transmission Problems (IITP) in Moscow, and his postdoctoral fellow, Dmitry Rodionov, used comparative genomics to identify a new transcription factor system in bacteria that...
