Although it usually only gets talked about when it starts causing problems, cholesterol is an important molecule to have in the body, as it is a component of cell membranes. The major component of cell membranes is a molecule called a phospholipid; an inorganic phosphate molecule joined onto lipid tails. Lots of these phospholipids all [...]

A lot of the research that gets highlighted on this blog is academic, providing fascinating insights into bacterial behaviour and potential antibiotic targets. I was excited, therefore, to have the opportunity to highlight some industrial research, looking at developing new antibiotic compounds against a broad-spectrum range of bacteria. In particular this research concentrates on potential [...]

There is more than one type of genetic material within the cell. As well as DNA, which stores the code for making cellular protiens, there is also RNA, which contains similar snatches of code but is less stable and more mobile than DNA. If DNA is a library of books which are not allowed to [...]

Unlike animals, plants do not have a circulating blood system containing cell capable of fighting off bacterial invasion. Instead, they have to rely on various other techniques, which I covered in detail way back on my old Field of Science blog. One method they use is to kill off cells that are close to a bacterial or [...]

One thing that becomes more clear with each piece of research is that the human body is a hive of mostly harmless bacteria that live in any crevice they can reach while affecting their human host as little as possible. In some cases these bacteria can be very beneficial – preventing more dangerous bacteria from taking up [...]

I’ve written before about ancient diseases of the ice age, but this time I’m going even further back in time, to diseases that were present in the first human-like hominids. Although many human infections only developed after human settlements and animal domistication, early human ancestors would still have been fighting off bacteria and other nasty [...]

I am completely snowed under with real work at the moment. There are two very important deadlines coming up which means that my time for blogging, or indeed any kind of non-work related writing, is severely limited. I’ll be putting up some archived posts from my old blog until I can get back to proper [...]

I got sent a wonderful story recently about a group of ten college students, from St Olaf college in Minnesota, who went on an electron microscopy course at the Boulder Laboratory for 3-D Electron Microscopy of the Cell in Colorado. As well as being shown the techniques and equipment in use, the students actually got a chance to use [...]

Just to let you know – the latest MolBio carnival is out! The bacteria that cause Tuberculosis are nasty little beasts. The white blood cells that clear infection in your body work by ingesting bacteria and then breaking them up, and the TB escapes this by letting itself get ingested and then sitting inside your [...]

The inside of the human body is a bacteria-free zone. Bacteria are certainly within you, but they exist only in areas that have a direct channel to the outside world, such as the mouth, intestines and the surface of the skin. These areas are well protected by a layer of cells (epithilial cells) which form [...]