The prominence of biomedical science is rising in the UK, it has been suggested.
Writing in the Independent, Steve Connor claimed that over recent decades, biology has become an increasing priority.
This follows a time during the early half of the 20th century during which physicists “ruled the roosts”, he said.
He pointed to the government’s pledge to build a £500 million “cathedral of science” dedicated to biomedical science in London.
The UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation will develop new treatments for the illnesses such as cancers, heart disease and strokes, flu and other infections. It is due to be completed by 2015 and will employ around 1,200 scientists.
Opens possibility of responsive ‘nanomachines’ for applications in energy and data storage
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have found a new way to use a synthetic form of DNA to control the assembly of nanoparticles — this time resulting in switchable, three-dimensional and small-cluster structures that might be useful, for example, as biosensors, in solar cells, and as new materials for data storage. The work is described in Nature Nanotechnology, published online December 20, 2009.
Boston University biomedical engineers have devised a method for making future genomesequencing faster and cheaper by dramatically reducing the amount of DNA required, thus eliminating the expensive, time-consuming and error-prone step of DNA amplification.
In a study published in the Dec. 20 online edition of Nature Nanotechnology, a team led by Boston University Biomedical Engineering Associate Professor Amit Meller details pioneering work in detecting DNA molecules as they pass through silicon nanopores. The technique uses electrical fields to feed long strands of DNA through four-nanometer-wide pores, much like threading a needle. The method uses sensitive electrical current measurements to detect single DNA molecules as they pass through the nanopores.
“The current study shows that we can detect a much smaller amount of DNA sample than previously reported,” said Meller. “When people start to implement genome sequencing or genome profiling using nanopores, they could use our nanopore capture approach to greatly reduce the number of copies used in those measurements.”