A team of scientists has developed a promising new strategy for "reactivating" genes that cause cancer tumors to shrink and die. The researchers hope that their discovery will aid in the development of an innovative anti-cancer drug that effectively targets unhealthy, cancerous tissue without damaging healthy, non-cancerous tissue and vital organs. The research will be published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. (more)
Kenneth H. Nealson, a Wrigley Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Southern California, will present the 2011-12 Stone Memorial Lecture at 4 p.m. on Monday, April 23, in 101 Althouse Laboratory on the Penn State University Park campus. This free public lecture, titled "Extracellular Electron Transfer (EET): Some New Things to Think About," is sponsored by the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. (more)
Registration is open for the sixth annual Jeremy Herbstritt 5K Run/Walk, an event honoring the Penn State engineering alumnus who died at the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007. The 5K Run/Walk will begin at 6:30 p.m. on April 16 at the Intramural Building on Curtin Road on the University Park campus of Penn State. (more)
Penn State College of Medicine is proud to welcome James R. Broach, chair, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and inaugural director of the Penn State Hershey Institute for Personalized Medicine with a new chair lecture. Broach's new chair lecture, "Systems Analysis of Growth and Development: Lessons from a Model Organism," will be held at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, April 9, in the Junker Auditorium on the Penn State Hershey campus. (more)
Scientists at Penn State have achieved a major milestone in the attempt to assemble, in a test tube, entire chromosomes from their component parts. The achievement reveals the process a cell uses to package the basic building blocks of an organism's entire genetic code -- its genome. The evidence provided by early research with the new procedure overturns three previous theories of the genome-packaging process and opens the door to a new era of genome-wide biochemistry research. A paper describing the team's achievement will be published in the journal Science on May 20. (more)
Amy Rosenzweig, a professor of biochemistry, molecular biology, cell biology, and chemistry at Northwestern University, will present the 2010/2011 Ernest C. Pollard Lecture at 4 p.m. on Monday, March 14, in 101 Althouse Laboratory on Penn State's University Park campus. The free public lecture is titled "Biological Methane Oxidation." (more)
John T. Lis, the Barbara McClintock professor of molecular biology and genetics at Cornell University, will present the 2010-11 Robert T. Simpson Memorial Lecture in Molecular Medicine at 4 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 18, in 101 Althouse Laboratory on the Penn State University Park campus. In this free public lecture, titled "New Views of Local and Genome-wide Transcription Regulation In Vivo," Lis will explore how genes are turned on and off. The lecture is sponsored by the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. (more)
CSI notwithstanding, forensics experts cannot always retrieve fingerprints from objects, but a conformal coating process developed by Penn State professors can reveal hard-to-develop fingerprints on nonporous surfaces without altering the chemistry of the print. "As prints dry or age, the common techniques used to develop latent fingerprints, such as dusting or cyanoacrylate -- SuperGlue -- fuming often fail," said Robert Shaler, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and director of Penn State's forensic sciences program. (more)
Arturo Zychlinsky, director of the Department of Cellular Microbiology at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, Germany, will present the 2009-10 Stone Memorial Lecture at 4 p.m. on Nov. 18, in room 101 of the Agricultural Sciences and Industries Building on Penn State's University Park campus. His lecture, titled "NETs: A Novel Antimicrobial Mechanism," is sponsored by the Penn State Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. It is free and open to the public.
