Monday,
15 December 2003
UniProt consortium goes on-line
Today the EMBL–European
Bioinformatics Institute [EMBL–EBI], the
Swiss Institute
of Bioinformatics [SIB] and Georgetown University
Medical Center's Protein
Information Resource [PIR] announce the launch
of UniProt,
a new universal protein resource that will be the
world's most comprehensive catalogue of information
on proteins. UniProt will provide a 'one-stop shop,'
allowing easy access to all the publicly available
information on proteins.
Friday, 21 November 2003
International
collaborators to form the Worldwide Protein
Data Bank
Today the Research Collaboratory for Structural
Bioinformatics [RCSB], the Macromolecular Structure
Database at the EMBL European Bioinformatics Institute
[MSD–EBI], and Protein Data Bank Japan [PDBj]
announced a collaboration to form the Worldwide
Protein Data Bank [wwPDB; www.wwpdb.org].
The announcement is published in the December issue
of Nature Structural Biology.
Friday,
7 November 2003
Prof. Fotis C.
Kafatos, Director-General of the European Molecular
Biology Laboratory [EMBL], becomes a Member of the
Pontifical Academy of Sciences
EMBL Director-General joins the oldest scientific academy in the modern world whose members have included Galileo Galilei, Max Planck, Niels Bohr, Sir Alexander Fleming, Max Perutz and many other distinguished scientists.
Friday,
17 October 2003
Fourteen Grand Challenges in Global Health [GCGH] announced in $200 million initiative
The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health
[NIH] and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
[BMGF] have announced the first 14 scientific challenges
that will be the focus of a 'Grand Challenges in
Global Health' initiative. Prof. Fotis C. Kafatos,
Director-General of the European Molecular Biology
Laboratory [EMBL], was one of three European experts
to participate on the GCCH scientific board whose
task was to identify the challenges to be addressed
in the $200-million medical research project.
Monday, 13 October 2003
MicroRNA Targets: How big is the iceberg?
In line with the dogma of molecular biology 'DNA
makes RNA makes protein', RNA molecules have largely
been thought of as intermediaries between the information
encoded in the genome and the proteins that do the
work. More recently, however, it has become clear
that RNAs play far more active roles in most if
not all plant and animal species.
Monday,
1 September 2003
A new support forum for small-to-medium enterprises
On 13 October 2003 the European
Bioinformatics Institute [EBI] will launch a new
bioinformatics support network that is tailor-made
for small companies.
It can be a lonely business being a bioinformatician
in a small company. It is widely acknowledged that
Europe's economic development is becoming increasingly
dependent on small-to-medium enterprises, or SMEs
[enterprises with fewer than 250 employees and an
annual turnover not exceeding 50 million Euros or
an annual balance-sheet total not exceeding 43 million
Euros].
Friday, 25 July 2003
Counting the molecules that pull cells apart
'Cells obey the laws of physics and chemistry',
begins a famous biology textbook, and one of the
main goals of molecular biology is to link the properties
of single molecules to the behavior of cells and
the lives of organisms. So it is probably no surprise
that an important new discovery about the physical
forces that underlie cell division comes from a
physics student-turned biologist, using math and
a laser "scalpel" integrated into a microscope.
Wednesday,
2 July 2003
25th Birthday gift: BMBF pledges 1 million Euro for new electron microscope at EMBL
German Research Ministry pledges 1 million Euro for the purchase of an electron microscope.
The German 'Bundesministerium für Bildung und
Forschung' [BMBF] will give the European Molecular
Biology Laboratory [EMBL] 1 million Euro for the
purchase of a new electron microscope. The gift
was announced by Parliamentary Secretary Christoph
Matschie, on Saturday 28 June, at a festival honoring
the 25th anniversary of the opening of EMBL's main
laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany.
Tuesday, 1 July 2003
Ireland becomes EMBL's 17th member state
Ireland
has been admitted as the seventeenth Member State of the European
Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL], with headquarters in
Heidelberg.The announcement comes as EMBL celebrates the twenty-fifth
anniversary of its move into the completed Heidelberg facility.
Monday, 23 June 2003
Fighting Mycobacterium tuberculosis with structural proteomics
EMBL Hamburg and partners receive a 3.5 million Euro grant from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research to combat TB.
Tuberculosis is one of the deadliest threats to
public health today. An estimated two billion people
are infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis [Mtb],
with eight million new cases annually and two million
people dying from the infection each year.
Thursday, 19 June 2003
Building research partnerships across Europe
EMBL and Sars International Centre enter into molecular biology partnership.
European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL, headquartered
in Heidelberg, Germany] and the Sars
International Centre [Bergen, Norway] have announced
today the establishment of a Partnership in Marine
Molecular Biology. The partnership will facilitiate
scientific exchange and support areas of common
interest of the two institutes, opening up new directions
for research training and collaborations.
Monday, 21 April 2003
What makes the body absorb too much iron?Researchers at EMBL and Harvard gain new insights into the most common inherited disease in the Western world. Like
most nutrients, iron is good for people – in the right
doses. When the body has enough iron, our cells stop absorbing
it from food; if there is too little, they absorb more. This
system breaks down in the most common inherited disease in
the Western world: hemochromatosis, which affects about
one in every 250 people and is often fatal if it is not recognized
and treated.
Friday, 28 March 2003
Getting a handle on sensitive cycles
EMBL researchers discover
a mechanism by which cells monitor estrogen.
The hormone estrogen is recognized by most people
because of its important role in women's reproductive
cycles. It also has other functions in the body:
it drives some types of cells to replicate themselves,
and it has been linked to the development of tumors.
Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory
[EMBL] in Heidelberg have now described a new model
of how cells constantly monitor their exposure to
estrogen.
Thursday, 20 March 2003
A subtle tool to study mankind's diseases in the mouse
One
of the most powerful tools in today's biological and medical
science is the ability to artificially remove and add bits
of DNA to an organism's genome. This has helped scientists
to understand problems caused by defective genes, for example,
which have now been linked to thousands of human diseases.
Friday, 7 February 2003
EMBO and EMBL receive EU funding to support science teachers
The European Molecular Biology Organization [EMBO]
announces the signing of a contract for EURO 710.000
with the European Commission to coordinate a project
under the title 'Continuing Education for European
Biology Teachers'. EMBO, the EMBL [European Molecular
Biology Laboratory] and the EFB [European Federation
of Biotechnology] join forces in 2003 and 2004 to
deliver a series of eight national and one international
teachers workshops, to create a practical training
programme for teachers and scientists, and to develop,
archive and distribute the best teaching resources.
Tuesday, 4 February 2003
Linking the Levels of LifeFrom genes to cellular processes with the Genome Knowledge Base.
The best place to learn about a small town you plan
to visit would be a travel brochure or a history
book. If none exists, you might have to spend days
combing libraries and archives for information before
your trip. A similar problem confronts scientists
when they search genome databases for information
about genes. "What they want to know may be there,"
says Ewan Birney, of the European
Bioinformatics Institute [EBI] in the UK, "but figuring
out what it means, and whether it's important, may
require days in the library." |
