Grenoble, 21 December 2005
A key that opens cells to the deadly malaria parasite
Researchers at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology [ICGEB] in India and a unit of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL] in France have made a key discovery about a molecule that helps the malaria parasite infect human cells.

Hinxton, Tuesday 6 December 2005
Setting the standard for computer models of life
In the December 6 issue of Nature Biotechnology, scientists from 14 different organizations around the world, including the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute, propose a new quality standard for biochemical models.

Hinxton, Friday 2 December 2005
What to sequence next: Pick one species at a time
After humans, mice, chickens and others what genomes should scientists sequence next?

Heidelberg, Thursday 24 November 2005
The earliest animals had human-like genes
Species evolve at very different rates, and the evolutionary line that produced humans seems to be among the slowest.

Hamburg, Wednesday 16 November 2005
New high-throughput crystallization facility at EMBL Hamburg to give boost to structural biology community
Today the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL] opens a new highthroughput crystallization facility at its Outstation located on the campus of the German Synchrotron Radiation Facility [DESY] in Hamburg, Germany.

Heidelberg, Tuesday 15 November 2005
Many needles, many haystacks
Most of what happens in cells is the work of machines
that contain dozens of molecules, chiefly proteins. Most of what happens in cells is the work of machines that contain dozens of molecules, chiefly proteins. With the completion of human and other genomes, researchers now have a nearly complete 'parts list' of such machines; what's lacking is the manual telling where all the pieces go. A new study by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL] promises to answer this question for some of the smallest and trickiest components in the cellular toolbox.

Monterotondo, Heidelberg, Ulm, Sunday 13 November 2005
Limiting the damage in stroke
Scientists at the Universities of Heidelberg and Ulm and a unit of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL] in Monterotondo, Italy, have discovered that a specific signal within brain cells may determine whether they live or die after a stroke.

Hinxton, Monday 31 October 2005
ENFIN! Computational systems biology comes to a lab bench near you
The Commission of the European Union has awarded EUR 9 million over five years for a new Network of Excellence that will make computational systems biology accessible to bench scientists throughout Europe and beyond.

Heidelberg, Thursday 6 October 2005
Defusing dangerous mutations
Mutations in genes are the basis of evolution, so we owe our existence to them. Most mutations are harmful, however, because they cause cells to build defective proteins. So cells have evolved quality control mechanisms that recognize and counteract genetic mistakes. Now scientists of the Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit [MMPU], a laboratory operated jointly by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL] and the University of Heidelberg, have discovered new features of a key quality-control mechanism in our cells. These insights into Nonsense-Mediated Decay [NMD], a process by which cells destroy potentially harmful molecules, promise to clarify our understanding of how some mutations lead to disease.

Hinxton, Monday 12 September 2005
European Commission funds EBI to do new research on synergies between bioinformatics and medical informatics
The European Commission has selected the EBI to coordinate a project that will stimulate and explore synergies between bioinformatics [the science of storing, retrieving and analysing large amounts of biological information] and medical informatics [the science of processing, sharing and using large amounts of medical information].

Heidelberg, Sunday 4 September 2005
A new link between stem cells and tumors
Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL] in Heidelberg and the Institute of Biomedical Research of the Parc Cient’fic de Barcelona [IRB-PCB] have now added key evidence to claims that some types of cancer originate with defects in stem cells.

Heidelberg, Thursday 25 August 2005
A double punch for female survival
Achieving equality between the sexes can be a challenge even for single cells. Since evolution began removing bits of male DNA to create the 'Y' chromosome, males have had a single copy of certain key genes on the X chromosome, whereas females have two. Normally this would lead females to produce twice the amount of some proteins, which could be fatal, but cells have developed ways to prevent this.

Hinxton, Monday 22 August 2005
Public collections of DNA and RNA sequence reach 100 gigabases
The world's three leading public repositories for DNA and RNA sequence information have reached 100 gigabases [100,000,000,000 bases; the 'letters' of the genetic code] of sequence. Thanks to their data exchange policy, which has paved the way for the global exchange of many types of biological information, the three members of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration [INSDC, www.insdc.org] – EMBL Bank [Hinxton, UK], GenBank [Bethesda, USA] and the DNA Data Bank of Japan [Mishima, Japan] all reached this milestone together.

Heidelberg, Monday 18 July 2005
Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit initiates second phase
The first rate research from the Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit [MMPU] is now set to continue for the long-term. The European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL] and the Medical Faculty of University of Heidelberg, who formed the joint venture in 2002, have announced their plans to initiate a second phase of the MMPU. The Unit has always combined the strengths of medical science with that of molecular biology. In this second phase, the links between the institutions will be strengthened. There will be an increased focus on recruiting additional research groups from each organisation as well as intensifying activities in post-graduate training.

Heidelberg, Wednesday 13 July 2005
Actin moves chromosomes: fundamental thinking
Microtubules need a helping hand to find chromosomes in dividing egg cells, scientists have discovered. Although it was generally accepted that microtubules act alone as the cellular ropes to pull chromosomes into place, a new study by researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL] shows that this is not the case. They found that in large cells such as animal eggs, something else is needed to move the chromosomes into the correct location – fibres of the cytoskeletal molecule actin.

Heidelberg, Tuesday 12 July 2005
Hunt for human genes involved in cell division under way
A systematic search through human genes has begun at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL] in Heidelberg, Germany. Working within the MitoCheck consortium that includes 10 other institutes throughout Europe, the EMBL scientists will silence all human genes, one-by-one, to find those involved in cell division [mitosis] and to answer fundamental questions of how cell division is regulated.

Hinxton, Friday 1 July 2005
Trees, vines and nets: microbial evolution changes its face
EBI researchers have changed our view of 4 billion years of microbial evolution. Christos Ouzounis and colleagues have gained intriguing quantitative insights into how gene families are transferred, not only 'vertically' through passage from one organism to its progeny, but also 'horizontally' through the exchange of genetic material between distantly related organisms.

Heidelberg, Sunday 19 June 2005
A link between our body's energy levels and a protein that wraps our DNA?
Living organisms need to sense the amount of energy that is available to them and regulate the activity of their genes accordingly. Scientists have made the unexpected finding that a histone protein, which wraps DNA into tight bundles and regulates gene activity, can bind a small molecule produced in our cells. This novel finding in itself was a breakthrough for researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL], but what made it more interesting was which specific molecule it binds – one from a pathway known to be linked to obesity and aging.

Hinxton, 13 May 2005
EMBL-EBI expansion goes ahead with help from The Wellcome Trust and UK Research Councils
The European Bioinformatics Institute [EMBL-EBI] has received a big boost from The Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council [MRC] and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [BBSRC], who have given funds to expand the EBI site in Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, UK.

Heidelberg, 1 May 2005
EMBL's fourth Director-General, Dr Iain Mattaj, takes office
Dr. Iain Mattaj today took over the leadership of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL], a prominent basic research and training institute with laboratories in France, Germany, Italy and the UK.

Heidelberg, 21 April 2005
Whale bones and farm soil: Sequencing biodiversity
Instead of sequencing the genome of one organism, why not sequence a drop of sea water, a gram of farm soil or even a sunken whale skeleton? Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL] in Heidelberg and their US collaborators have done just that, and the result is a new appreciation for the rich diversity of life that exists in the most unlikely places.

Hinxton, Pasadena, 11 April 2005
A new way to share models of biological systems
Today sees the launch of BioModels, the world's first database of annotated biological models. BioModels is the result of a collaboration led by the European Bioinformatics Institute [UK] and the SBML Team, an international group that develops opensource standards to describe biological systems. Other contributors include the Keck Graduate Institute [USA], the Systems Biology Institute [Japan] and Stellenbosch University [South Africa].

Heidelberg, Jena, 31 March 2005
The transparent organism: EMBLEM and Carl Zeiss give labs a unique look at life
A novel high-tech microscope will be brought to the marketplace, giving laboratories everywhere fascinating new insights into living organisms. EMBLEM Technology Transfer GmbH [EMBLEM], the commercial entity of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL], announced today that it has signed a licensing deal with technological leader Carl Zeiss to commercialize a new technology called SPIM [Selective Plane Illumination Microscopy].

Hinxton, 28 February 2005
Double recognition of EBI scientists by the ISCB
The International Society for Computational Biology has named two scientists from the European Bioinformatics Institute as the winners of its awards for 2005. Janet Thornton wins the Senior Scientist Accomplishment Award while the Overton Prize goes to Ewan Birney.

Heidelberg, Copenhagen, 3 February 2005
Biology in four dimensions
Most things that happen in the cell are the work of 'molecular machines' – complexes of proteins that carry out important cellular functions. Until now, scientists didn't have a clear idea of when proteins form these machines – are these complexes pre-fabricated or put together on the spot for each specific job? Researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL], working closely with scientists from the Technical University of Denmark [DTU], have now answered that question by drawing together many types of data in a fascinating new model. The work is published in this week's edition of Science.

Hinxton, 1 February 2005
European bioinformatics grid receives 8 million Euro
The Commission of the European Union has awarded 8.3 million Euro to a pan-European task force who will improve access to biological information for scientists throughout and beyond Europe. The EMBRACE Network of Excellence, which encompasses computational biologists from 17 institutes in 11 countries and is coordinated by the European Bioinformatics Institute's Associate Director Graham Cameron, will use these funds to simplify and standardize the way in which biological information is served to the researchers who use it.

Monterotondo, 25 January 2005
How do cells travel through our bodies?
One of the most basic yet least understood processes in our bodies is how cells crawl along tissues. This behavior is essential to the formation of an embryo and other processes, but it must be tightly controlled. A disturbance can lead to the spread of cancer cells or diseases like Spina bifida and Lissencephaly, in which cells fail to reach their proper destinations. Scientists from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL] in Monterotondo have now made a significant step forward in understanding cell motility.