Monthly Archives: May 2012

A unified phylogeny-based nomenclature for histone variants

The lack of a consistent naming convention for histone variants has led to much confusion for histone researchers in recent years, at a time when genome sequencing has become routine and the number of known variants has greatly increased. This has led to problems concerning the similarity of names and incorrect attributions of orthology or… Read more »

Biology

"Cardiovascular Diseases" thematic series – Submit your research now!

“Cardiovascular diseases”, a new thematic series from Fibrogenesis & Tissue Repair, is now accepting submissions. The series, edited by Professor Ian M.C. Dixon, will publish both research and review articles relating to all aspects of cardiovascular fibroproliferative disorders, including cardiac fibrosis, the extracellular matrix and heart failure. The series welcomes research on a wide range… Read more »

Biology
2

Latest supplement from Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases

Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases has published a supplement of proceedings from the International Meeting on Fibrous Dysplasia/McCune-Albright Syndrome and Cherubism, which was held in Bethesda, MD, USA on 3rd-5th October 2010. Publication of the proceedings was funded by the Fibrous Dysplasia Foundation and an unrestricted grant from Zimmer. The aim of the conference was… Read more »

Biology

Why publish meeting Abstracts in Retrovirology?

Retrovirology publishes meeting Abstracts as supplements to the journal.  This is a service that we provide to the retrovirus research community. On our supplements page https://www.retrovirology.com/supplements, you can view Abstracts from 10 meetings that have been published in Retrovirology, including the recent Abstracts from the 17th International Symposium on HIV and Emerging Infectious Diseases (ISHEID) https://www.retrovirology.com/supplements/9/S1.  Occasionally,… Read more »

Biology

Beyond biofuels

The rising price of crude oil and it’s chemical products has prompted a surge of investment in bio-based chemicals. For example, last months announcement of a joint venture between Solazyme and Bunge to build a 100,000-tonne sugar-cane plant in Brazil, that will produce tailored tri-glyceride oils. Ground-breaking technologies for bio-based petrochemical replacements are moving to… Read more »

Biology

Detecting low frequency mutations

In most genome sequencing applications, at a given locus there are at most two variants, present in equal proportions (ie the two alleles in a diploid individual). In situations like these, the high error rates of next generation sequencing technology are not a large problem, as any errors are likely to be present at much… Read more »

Biology

Nurse! The screens!

37 years ago, Paul Nurse performed a screen in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe for mutants which divided at an abnormally small size. He identified a gene, wee1, which was the first gene found to control the cell cycle and cell division. As a result of this work, Nurse won the Nobel Prize for Physiology… Read more »

Biology
2

BMC Structural Biology gets some SAXS appeal

Despite their name, biological macromolecules are actually pretty small, and it can be tough determining their structure. Many techniques have been developed over the last century to bypass the limits of conventional light microscopy, to peer deeper  into the shapes and functions of key molecules like proteins and nucleic acids. Determining with accuracy the exact… Read more »

Biology

An Emirates hat-trick for BMC Biology authors

This week saw the annual BMC Research Awards presentations, in the Emirates Stadium and with a sports science theme, to acknowledge the forthcoming London Olympics. BMC Biology is very happy to be able to congratulate the authors of three BMC Biology papers that won awards reflecting the diversity of interesting topics on which we publish:-… Read more »

Biology
2