Molecular and Cellular Biology

Molecular biology ( /məˈlɛkjʊlər/) is the branch of biology that deals with the molecular basis of biological activity. This field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry. Molecular biology chiefly concerns itself with understanding the interactions between the various systems of a cell, including the interactions between the different types of DNA, RNA and protein biosynthesis as well as learning how these interactions are regulated. Writing in Nature in 1961, William Astbury described molecular biology as Researchers in molecular biology use specific techniques native to molecular biology but increasingly combine these with techniques and ideas from genetics and biochemistry. There is not a defined line between these disciplines. The figure above is a schematic that depicts one possible view of the relationship between the fields: Much of the work in molecular biology is quantitative, and recently much work has been done at the interface of molecular biology and computer science in bioinformatics and computational biology. As of the early 2000s, the study of gene structure and function, molecular genetics, has been among the most

Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Country
United States
History
1981–present
Website
http://mcb.asm.org/
Impact factor
5.942 (2008)

Some content from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA

Diabetes

Single enzyme is necessary for development of diabetes

An enzyme called 12-LO promotes the obesity-induced oxidative stress in the pancreatic cells that leads to pre-diabetes, and diabetes. 12-LO's enzymatic action is the last step in the production of certain small molecules ...

Medical research

Hydrogen sulfide: The next anti-aging agent?

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) may play a wide-ranging role in staving off aging, according to a paper published online ahead of print in the journal Molecular and Cellular Biology. In this review article, a team from China explores ...

Immunology

Enzyme's alter ego helps activate the immune system

Already known to cut proteins, the enzyme SPPL3 turns out to have additional talents, according to a new study from Johns Hopkins. In its newly discovered role, SPPL3 works without cutting proteins to activate T cells, the ...

Neuroscience

Pedal to the metal: Speeding up treatments for ALS

A therapeutic intervention for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, could be on the horizon thanks to unexpected findings by University of Arizona researchers.

Medical research

Telomere length influences cancer cell differentiation

Researchers from the Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research in Tokyo have discovered that forced elongation of telomeres (extensions on the end of chromosomes) promotes the differentiation of cancer cells, probably reducing ...

page 1 from 3