News tagged with cell biology

Going live: Immune cell activation in multiple sclerosis

Biological processes are generally based on events at the molecular and cellular level. To understand what happens in the course of infections, diseases or normal bodily functions, scientists would need to ...

Immunology created May 24, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (6) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

The secret lives, and deaths, of neurons

As the human body fine-tunes its neurological wiring, nerve cells often must fix a faulty connection by amputating an axon—the "business end" of the neuron that sends electrical impulses to tissues or other ...

Neuroscience created May 23, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Study details genes that control whether tumors adapt or die when faced with p53 activating drugs

When turned on, the gene p53 turns off cancer. However, when existing drugs boost p53, only a few tumors die – the rest resist the challenge. A study published in the journal Cell Reports shows how: tumors that live even i ...

Cancer created May 22, 2013 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Finding a family for a pair of orphan receptors in the brain

Researchers at Emory University have identified a protein that stimulates a pair of "orphan receptors" found in the brain, solving a long-standing biological puzzle and possibly leading to future treatments for neurological ...

Medical research created May 21, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

New tumour-killer shows great promise in suppressing cancers

Scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Lund University, Sweden, have bioengineered a novel molecule which has been proven to successfully kill tumour cells.

Cancer created May 21, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Anti-CD47 antibody may offer new route to successful cancer vaccination

(Medical Xpress)—Scientists at the School of Medicine have shown that their previously identified therapeutic approach to fight cancer via immune cells called macrophages also prompts the disease-fighting killer T cells ...

Cancer created May 21, 2013 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Discovery of circadian clock in mice hair reveals period of time when damage from radiotherapy can be quickly repaired

Discovering that mouse hair has a circadian clock - a 24-hour cycle of growth followed by restorative repair - researchers suspect that hair loss in humans from toxic cancer radiotherapy and chemotherapy ...

Medical research created May 20, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Research uncovers a potential role of two proteins in diabetes

(Medical Xpress)—Flinders University researchers are breaking new ground in a decade-long journey to pinpoint the function of two closely related proteins.

Diabetes created May 20, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Computational tool translates complex data into simplified 2-dimensional images

In their quest to learn more about the variability of cells between and within tissues, biomedical scientists have devised tools capable of simultaneously measuring dozens of characteristics of individual ...

Medical research created May 19, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Insight into cell survival

Researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology report details on the biological mechanisms through which cells degrade own cellular material, allowing them to survive starvation conditions.

Medical research created May 17, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Researchers identify target to prevent hardening of arteries

The hardening of arteries is a hallmark of atherosclerosis, an often deadly disease in which plaques, excessive connective tissue, and other changes build up inside vessel walls and squeeze off the flow of ...

Cardiology created May 16, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

What role do processing bodies play in cell survival and protection against viral infection?

As scientists learn more about processing bodies (PBs), granules present within normal cells, they are unraveling the complex role PBs play in maintaining cellular homeostasis by regulating RNA metabolism ...

Medical research created May 16, 2013 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Vicious cycle: Obesity sustained by changes in brain biochemistry

With obesity reaching epidemic levels in some parts of the world, scientists have only begun to understand why it is such a persistent condition. A study in the Journal of Biological Chemistry adds substantially to the st ...

Medical research created May 16, 2013 | popularity 3 / 5 (2) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Endothelium, heal thyself: A fresh look at this resilient, adaptable tissue

(Medical Xpress)—The endothelium, the cellular layer lining the body's blood vessels, is extremely resilient. Measuring just a few hundred nanometers in thickness, this super-tenuous structure routinely ...

Medical research created May 16, 2013 | popularity 4 / 5 (2) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Cells must use their brakes moderately for effective speed control

How cells regulate their own function by "accelerating and braking" is important basic knowledge when new intelligent medicines are being developed, or when plant cells are tweaked to produce more bioenergy. In a study published ...

Medical research created May 15, 2013 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Cell biology

Cell biology (formerly cytology, from the Greek kytos, "container") is an academic discipline that studies cells – their physiological properties, their structure, the organelles they contain, interactions with their environment, their life cycle, division and death. This is done both on a microscopic and molecular level. Cell biology research encompasses both the great diversity of single-celled organisms like bacteria and protozoa, as well as the many specialized cells in multicellular organisms like humans.

Knowing the components of cells and how cells work is fundamental to all biological sciences. Appreciating the similarities and differences between cell types is particularly important to the fields of cell and molecular biology as well as to biomedical fields such as cancer research and developmental biology. These fundamental similarities and differences provide a unifying theme, sometimes allowing the principles learned from studying one cell type to be extrapolated and generalized to other cell types. Hence, research in cell biology is closely related to genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology and developmental biology.

For more information about Cell biology, read the full article at Wikipedia.
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