The molecular machinery that normally builds proteins inside cells has now taken on a new role as a "switch." A research team ...

Gene expression in eukaryotes is governed not only at the level of transcription but also by tightly regulated steps in the translation of mRNA into protein. Control mechanisms span initiation, ...

Scientists at the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences (LMS) have discovered a DNA-based “dimmer switch” that regulates the activity of a critical developmental gene, Cdx2. This work could pave the way ...

Engineers and biologists at Dartmouth College have found that, just like word order affects meaning in a sentence, the placement of genes within a plasmid—known as gene syntax—can influence how ...

To help achieve more precise control of gene therapy, engineers have designed a new control circuit that can keep gene expression levels within a target range. The method could be used to deliver ...

Epilepsy affects more than 50 million people worldwide, making it one of the most common neurological disorders. Although ...

The evolution of biomedical science can be appreciated through studies of hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying protein in red cells. Before molecular cloning, the geneticist Arno Motulsky noted, “Many ...

What if you could flip a genetic switch to silence a gene, then turn it back on with a simple drug? For researchers, gene-switch tools offer that kind of control—and a new system called Cyclone may ...

Inside every cell, thousands of molecular signals collide, overlap, and compensate, obscuring the true drivers of gene expression. Scientists have now developed a way to silence that cellular noise, ...

DNA methylation is a key epigenome component that helps dictate how genes are expressed, contributing to normal cell and tissue differentiation during development, as well as the process of biological ...