Button to scroll to the top of the page.

News

From the College of Natural Sciences
Molecular Biosciences

Molecular Biosciences

Subscribe to this category Subscribe via RSS
Molecular Biosciences

Scientists Find More Influences on Inherited Traits

Researchers have looked deeper into the makeup of DNA to get clues about why people might have different colors of hair or eyes, why some are taller or heavier and why some are more susceptible to certain diseases.

Tags:
Genetics molecular biology
Molecular Biosciences

A Swarm of Salmonella

Dr. Rasika Harshey The same kind of evolutionary mechanism that explains why people tend to cross an intersection in an orderly fashion, or why a flock of birds can turn in the air with such balletic grace, may help explain why Salmonella bacteria are able to swarm together to better resist antibiotics. That’s one of the implications of a new ...
Molecular Biosciences

Tagged for Destruction

The relationship between human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical cancer has led biologist Jon Huibregtse on a journey deep into the regulatory structure of the human cell.

Molecular Biosciences

Office Hours: Dr. Dio Siegel

Chemist looks for potential drug compounds in plants.

Molecular Biosciences

Better Drugs to Fight Flu is Goal of $1.5 Million NIH Project

University of Texas at Austin and Rice University scientists have won a $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to scrutinize the influenza A virus for clues that could lead to more effective antiviral drugs.

Tags:
Finance health & medicine Systems & Synthetic Biology molecular biology
Molecular Biosciences

Making smart materials

Jason Shear, Marvin Whiteley and others are developing "smart materials" in order to study antibiotic resistance, develop new medical devices and explore how 3-D hydrogels can help regrow nerve cells.
Molecular Biosciences

Undergraduate Wang Wins $20,000 Mitchell Prize

Yuxuan Wang, a senior majoring in biochemistry, has won the $20,000 grand prize in the 10th annual University Co-op George H. Mitchell Awards for Academic Excellence for undergraduate students at The University of Texas at Austin.
Molecular Biosciences

Synthesizing the Natural

Dionicio Siegel, assistant professor of chemistry, looks to nature for scientific inspiration. For Dionicio Siegel to synthesize compounds in the lab that may someday help treat neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, he has to rely on the work of a specialized class of people. Their job, essentially, is to go mucking around in the woods. “T...Dionicio Siegel, assistant professor of chemistry, looks to nature for scientific inspiration.
Molecular Biosciences

Oral Fixations

Graduate student Matthew Ramsey is working with Dr. Marvin Whiteley to better understand the complex ecologies of bacteria living in the human mouth. When microbiologist Marvin Whiteley and graduate student Matthew Ramsey began peering into the human mouth, as part of an ongoing quest to understand more about the ways that bacteria form complex ec...Graduate student Matthew Ramsey is working with Dr. Marvin Whiteley to better understand the complex ecologies of bacteria living in the human mouth.
Molecular Biosciences

Biologist Studies Evolution of HIV

AUSTIN, Texas--Dr. Sara Sawyer, an evolutionary biologist, will use a $120,000 grant from the Foundation for AIDS Research (amFAR) to study how the HIV virus and the cells it attacks have evolved together over time. The goal of her research is to discover new targets for drugs. When HIV infiltrates cells, the virus hijacks its host's genetic m...
Tags:
Finance Evolution health & medicine infectious disease molecular biology
Molecular Biosciences

The Bacteria Diet

How Pseudomonas proves so tenacious, and why it acts so differently in Cystic fibrosis-afflicted lungs than in normal human lungs, are puzzles that Whiteley has been working to solve for more than a decade.
Molecular Biosciences

Dudley Elected Fellow of American Academy of Microbiology

Dr. Jaquelin Dudley, professor of molecular genetics and microbiology, has been elected a fellow in the American Academy of Microbiology.
Why Hybrids Grow Bigger
Molecular Biosciences

Why Hybrids Grow Bigger

AUSTIN, Texas—Hybrid plants, like corn, grow bigger and better than their parents because many of their genes for photosynthesis and starch metabolism are more active during the day, report researchers from The University of Texas at Austin in a new study published in the journal Nature. Their research has relevance in many areas of agriculture, a...
Tags:
Genetics Biodiversity molecular biology
Molecular Biosciences

Chemist Mahal Receives NIH New Innovator Award

AUSTIN, Texas—Dr. Lara K. Mahal, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, is one of 31 researchers nationally to receive a 2008 New Innovator Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She will use the 5-year, $1.5 million grant to decode how sugar molecules on cell surfaces encode information such as cell type and health. This m...
Discovery Opens Door For Drugs To Fight Bird Flu, Influenza Epidemics
Molecular Biosciences

Discovery Opens Door For Drugs To Fight Bird Flu, Influenza Epidemics

AUSTIN, Texas—Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Rutgers University have reported a discovery that could help scientists develop drugs to fight avian flu and other virulent strains of influenza. The researchers have determined the three-dimensional structure of a site on an influenza A virus protein that binds to one of the human...
Tags:
health & medicine infectious disease Systems & Synthetic Biology Microbiology molecular biology