Physical perspective on cytoplasmic streaming
Professor Ray Goldstein FRS is the Schlumberger Professor of Complex Physical Systems at the University of Cambridge. Here he describes a biological example of topological inversion, with relevance to engineering problems in human technology.
More details | Watch nowGenetics, epigenetics and disease
The human genome sequence has been available for more than a decade, but its significance is still not fully understood. While most human genes have been identified, there is much to learn about the DNA signals that control them. This lecture describ....
More details | Watch nowMolecular chaperones: how cells stop proteins from misbehaving
Proteins are the action molecules of all cells, and to function properly, protein chains must fold and assemble correctly. But each chain of every protein runs the risk that it will combine with one or more identical chains to form nonfunctional aggr....
More details | Watch nowFrom bears’ winter-sleep to advanced antibiotics
Professor Ada Yonath, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. To facilitate instant recovery of active life once bears wake up from their winter sleep, nature provides ingenious mechanism based on periodic packing of their ribosomes, the cellular ma....
More details | Watch nowFinding patterns in genes and proteins: decoding the logic of molecular interactions
Dr Sarah Teichmann is based at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the University of Cambridge. In the post-genomic era, high-throughput methods are providing us with a deluge of data about genes and proteins. What knowledge about biology do....
More details | Watch nowRegenerating organs and other small challenges
A disagreeable side effect of longer life-spans is the failure of one part of the body – the knees, for example – before the body as a whole is ready to surrender. The search for replacement body parts has fueled the highly interdisciplinary fiel....
More details | Watch nowNetworks in ecosystems and financial systems
This talk surveys our growing understanding of the relationships between the network structure of ecological networks ? both in mathematical models and in the real world ? and their ability to withstand disturbance, natural or human-created.
More details | Watch nowThinking like a vegetable: how plants decide what to do
Plants monitor a wide range of information from their surrounding environment. They combine information of multiple sorts, and respond in an appropriate way. In plants there is no brain, and the information processing is distributed across the plant ....
More details | Watch nowBrain development and brain repair.
The human brain is made up of close to a trillion nerve cells (or neurons), each of which makes connections with, on average, hundreds of other nerve cells, to form the complex neuronal circuits that control all brain activities, including perception....
More details | Watch nowEngineered zinc finger proteins and gene expression
It has long been the goal of molecular biologists to design DNA binding proteins for the specific control of gene expression. The zinc finger design, discovered by Sir Aaron Klug 20 years ago, is ideally suited for such purposes, discriminating betwe....
More details | Watch nowDeciphering disease: cells and disruption of their communication
The human body may seem to be no more than a bundle of tissues and organs, yet the cells these are made from are capable of interacting, communicating and performing complex tasks. Our cells' capacity to interact in this way enables humans to adapt t....
More details | Watch nowStem Cells to Synapses
One of the goals of research in neurobiology is the repair and regeneration of neurons after damage to the brain or spinal cord. Before we can understand how to repair the nervous system we must first learn how the nervous system is put together.
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