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gene

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13 December 2024

Speaking the language of DNA

Right from the early days of DNA sequencing, EMBL’s scientists have been instrumental in helping the world understand, decode, archive, and manipulate genomes at scale and across many branches of the evolutionary tree, a task they continue to excel at today.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

2024

science-technology

18 July 2022 Large, elongated purple molecule has an on/off switch on it pointed to on.

The retron switch

EMBL researchers now understand the function of an elusive small DNA in bacteria and have developed a tool that can be used to better understand what might ‘switch on’ bacterial immune defences.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

2022

sciencescience-technology

25 August 2020 Fruit fly larval cells looking like blue lightning

Breathing beneath the skin

Beautiful flashes of blue colour help light the way for researchers to study cells in fruit fly larva that provide oxygen to tissues.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

2020

picture-of-the-weekscience-technology

3 August 2020 A woman with glasses holds a book. The book cover says "Gene naming rules". Thought bubbles float around her head and display gene symbols like BRCA1.

Bagpipe and Pokemon, or how not to name a human gene

The human genome harbours about 19 000 protein-coding genes, many of which still have no known function. As scientists unveil the secrets of our DNA, they come across novel genes that they need to refer to using a unique name. The Human Genome Organisation’s Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC) at…

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

2020

sciencescience-technology

3 February 2011

Blood-clotting protein linked to cancer and septicaemia

In our not-so-distant evolutionary past, stress often meant imminent danger, and the risk of blood loss, so part of our body’s stress response is to stock-pile blood-clotting factors. Scientists in the Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit (MMPU), a collaboration between the European Molecular…

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

2011

sciencescience-technology

2 February 2011

The human genome’s breaking points

A detailed analysis of data from 185 human genomes sequenced in the course of the 1000 Genomes Project, by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, in collaboration with researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK, as well as the…

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

2011

sciencescience-technology

16 November 2010

One-touch make-up – for our cells

The cells in the different parts of this video are always the same (grey), but, like actors using make-up to highlight different facial features, they have fluorescent labels that mark different cellular components in different colours: blue shows the nucleus, yellow shows tubulin (a component of…

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

2010

sciencescience-technology

27 October 2010

1000 Genomes Project ushers in new era for human genetics

The 1000 Genomes Project, a major international collaboration to build a detailed map of human genetic variation, has completed its pilot phase. The results are now published in the journal Nature and freely available through the European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s European Bioinformatics…

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

2010

sciencescience-technology

18 March 2010

What makes us unique? Not only our genes

Once the human genome was sequenced in 2001, the hunt was on for the genes that make each of us unique. But scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and Yale and Stanford Universities in the USA, have found that we differ from each other mainly because…

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

2010

sciencescience-technology

10 December 2009 These microscopy images show the cellular reprogramming uncovered by EMBL scientists. On the left is an ovary of a normal adult female mouse, with a close-up (top left) showing the typical female granulosa cells. When the Foxl2 gene was silenced in these cells (right, top right: close-up), they took on the characteristics of Sertoli cells, the cells normally found in testes of male mice. Image credit: Treier / EMBL

The Battle of the Sexes

Is it a boy or a girl? Expecting parents may be accustomed to this question, but contrary to what they may think, the answer doesn’t depend solely on their child’s sex chromosomes. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany and the Medical Research…

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

2009

sciencescience-technology

8 July 2007

A gene that protects from kidney disease

Researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the University of Michigan have discovered a gene that protects us against a serious kidney disease. In the current online issue of Nature Genetics they report that mutations in the gene cause nephronopthisis (NPHP) in humans and…

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

2007

sciencescience-technology

27 September 2006

How nature tinkers with the cellular clock

The life of a cell is all about growing and dividing at the right time. That is why the cell cycle is one of the most tightly regulated cellular processes. A control system with several layers adjusts when key components of the cell cycle machinery are produced, activated and degraded to make sure…

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

2006

sciencescience-technology

16 February 2006

Waking a sleeping virus

A detailed structural picture of a molecule that plays a key role in activating the Epstein Barr Virus in human cells has now been obtained by researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the Institut de Virologie Moléculaire et Structurale (IVMS), associated with the…

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

2006

sciencescience-technology

24 November 2005

The earliest animals had human-like genes

Species evolve at very different rates, and the evolutionary line that produced humans seems to be among the slowest. The result, according to a new study by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL], is that our species has retained characteristics of a very ancient ancestor…

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

2005

sciencescience-technology

6 October 2005

Defusing dangerous mutations

Mutations in genes are the basis of evolution, so we owe our existence to them. Most mutations are harmful, however, because they cause cells to build defective proteins. So cells have evolved quality control mechanisms that recognize and counteract genetic mistakes. Now scientists of the Molecular…

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

2005

sciencescience-technology

1 July 2005

Trees, vines and nets: microbial evolution changes its face

EBI researchers have changed our view of 4 billion years of microbial evolution. Christos Ouzounis and colleagues have gained intriguing quantitative insights into how gene families are transferred, not only ‘vertically’ through passage from one organism to its progeny, but also…

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

2005

sciencescience-technology

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