From: Brett Paatsch (bpaatsch@bigpond.net.au)
Date: Fri Jul 25 2003 - 19:32:56 MDT
Here's a little curio for the bio-philes, on the proteins
that pull eggs cell in worms apart. It would be nice
'platform' knowledge to know these in humans.
-----
Counting the molecules that pull cells apart
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-07/embl-ctm072403.php
"Scientists at the MPI-CBG in Dresden and EMBL in
Heidelberg map forces that help cells divide "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. The
findings appear in the current issue of the journal Science.
Stephan Grill, Joe Howard, Erik Schäffer, Ernst Stelzer
and Tony Hyman - in a collaboration between the Max-
Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics
in Dresden and EMBL in Heidelberg - have done
something few scientists have managed:
they have counted the number of proteins that help an
egg cell divide. This initial division happens in a special
way in the roundworm C. elegans, one of biology's most
important model organisms." .....
Regards
Brett
[Now off for the weekend]
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