Medical research

New study shows a role for cholesterol in pain perception

When you stub your toe or bump your head, you know that rubbing the injury can lessen the ouch. But how? New research from the lab of Scott B. Hansen, Ph.D., shows how physical pressure on cells can reduce pain signals, while ...

HIV & AIDS

Scientists see an ultra-fast movement on surface of HIV virus

As the HIV virus glides up outside a human cell to dock and possibly inject its deadly cargo of genetic code, there's a spectacularly brief moment in which a tiny piece of its surface snaps open to begin the process of infection.

Medical research

Molecular jackhammers drill pathway to killing cancer cells  

Just as jackhammers can penetrate concrete, molecular jackhammers (MJH) are nanoscopic machines capable of creating blows so strong that they can crack or rupture the cell membrane, decompensating and killing the cell. The ...

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Cell membrane

The cell membrane (also called the plasma membrane or plasmalemma) is the biological membrane separating the interior of a cell from the outside environment.

It is a semipermeable lipid bilayer found in all cells. It contains a wide variety of biological molecules, primarily proteins and lipids, which are involved in a vast array of cellular processes such as cell adhesion, ion channel conductance and cell signaling. The plasma membrane also serves as the attachment point for both the intracellular cytoskeleton and, if present, the extracellular cell wall.

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