10 Awesome
Topics in Biology
Part II
- Nanobiotechnology
There are multiple points where Nanotechnology finds an application in the Biological Sciences (nanopores for DNA sequencing, carbon nanotubes, generation of new functional materials for biosensing, tissue engineering or pharmacological delivery, to name a few).
We have already mentioned DNA origami, but the field is wider. Here are some useful links:
a. Lu, et al., (2006), The role of molecular modeling in bionanotechnology.
b. Taylor, (2007), Biological matrices and bionanotechnology.
c. Villaverde, (2010), Nanotechnology, bionanotechnology and microbial cell factories.
d. Langer and Peppas, (2003), Advances in Biomaterials, Drug Delivery, and Bionanotechnology.
e. Cady, (2007), Nanobiology.
- Protein Engineering
Proteins are the most functionally diverse biomolecules. They are basically chains of amino acids that fold and interact with other cell components, depending on the particular three-dimensional conformation that those amino acid chains acquire.
Proteins can now be semi-rationally produced using some genetic techniques. This semi-rational modification of proteins is called "protein engineering".
Already existing proteins or protein domains (protein domains are discrete protein modules with a particular activity, which are shared and combined differently among proteins, making them perform different overall different functions) can be shuffled and combined in configurations that do not exist in nature in order to generate proteins with novel functions. This can be done by cutting and pasting the DNA code that corresponds to a particular amino acid sequence.
But novel proteins structures can also be designed in a computer! After their corresponding DNA code is synthesized and cloned into cells, a completely artificially designed protein can be produced from living cells.
Some links on Protein Engineering:
a. Carter, (2011), Introduction to current and future protein therapeutics: a protein engineering perspective.
c. Clarke, (2010), Protein engineering for bioenergy and biomass-based chemicals.
d. Böttcher and Bornscheuer, (2010), Protein engineering of microbial enzymes.
e. Wen, Nair and Zhao, (2009), Protein engineering in designing tailored enzymes and microorganisms for biofuels production.
f. Cole and Gaucher, (2011), Exploiting models of molecular evolution to efficiently direct protein engineering.
g. Fisher, et al., (2010), De Novo Designed Proteins from a Library of Artificial Sequences Function in Escherichia Coli and Enable Cell Growth.
h. Klepeis and Fouldas, (2004), In Silico Protein Design: A Combinatorial and Global Optimization Approach.
- DIYBio
Imagine having your own Molecular Biology lab in your garage, with centrifuges and PCR machines constructed by yourself and some test tubes with cells growing in a home-made culture media. This is the reality of the "Do It Yourself" Biology movement, or simply DIYBio, has been covered in The NY Times, Nature News, EMBO and Forbes.
One of the most interesting drives is that of bringing the biological science again to that stage where the in-house experimenter can also contribute to the generation of knowledge, like at their time Darwin and Mendel did.
Some cool links about DIYBio:
- Quantum Biology
Although they have been mainly studied in controlled, non-biotic conditions, quantum effects like entanglement, coherence and tunneling are also important at the biological level, specially in processes like photosynthesis, enzymatic catalysis and even avian magnetic sensing and olfactory signal reception. The study of this effects in biological systems is called Quantum Biology by some.
Some cool links about Quantum Biology:
- Molecular Paleobiology
Recently, a research group was able to bring back to life a plant whose fruits remained preserved in a 30,000 old squirrel burrow found in the Siberian permafrost.
Doing the same with whole ancient animals is still a matter of fiction, but this can be done with some molecular components of organisms, like proteins.
Some resurrected proteins come from mamooths and oestrogen receptors. The study of this ancient proteins may bring new information for evolutionary analysis. Furthermore, other studies use ancestral enzymes to study functional diversification and some others use predicted ancestral sequences to engineer desired functions by directed evolution.
Further reading:
a. Benner, Saussi and Gaucher, (2007), Molecular paleoscience: systems biology from the past.
b. Huang, et al., (2012), Enzyme functional evolution through improved catalysis of ancestrally nonpreferred substrates.
