all Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology stories

Researchers ‘NOTCH’ a victory in war on cancer

404132862 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:09:01 -0500

Taking nanomaterials to a new level of structural complexity, Harvard researchers have determined how to introduce kinks into arrow-straight nanowires, transforming them into zigzagging two- and three-dimensional structures with correspondingly advanced functions.

The work is described this week in in a letter in the journal Nature Nanotechnology by scientists led by Bozhi Tian and Charles M. Lieber.

Bringing new meaning to the term scientific paper

404132862 — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:00:57 -0400

An insight from the labs of Harvard chemist George M. Whitesides and cell biologist Donald Ingber is likely to make a fundamental shift in how biologists grow and study cells – and it’s as cheap and easy as reaching for a paper towel.

Why leave it to nature?

404132862 — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:33:25 -0400

Amid calls for transformative change in the world’s energy supply, Harvard chemist Ted Betley is taking a back-to-basics approach and examining the mother of all energy supplies — photosynthesis — for clues to how nature runs a power plant.

After bloody revolution: Bringing science back to Liberian classrooms

705287540 — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 09:31:31 -0400

Adam Cohen and Ben Rapoport needed materials to conduct a science experiment, but supplies were hard to come by.

A collaboration with a long lifetime

50443248 — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:34:10 -0400

It was a crisp, classic fall day in Cambridge, but little of the golden afternoon sunlight trickled down to Cynthia Friend’s laboratory in the basement of the Harvard chemistry building.

Yet sunlight and gold are key to an intriguing research project taking shape here, combining the expertise of Friend, a professor of chemistry and materials science, and Katharina Al-Shamery RI ’09, a German scientist who spent the fall semester of 2008–2009 in Friend’s lab on a Radcliffe Institute fellowship.

Taking a stride toward synthetic life

50443248 — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 19:29:28 -0500

Harvard scientists have cleared a key hurdle in the creation of synthetic life, assembling a cell’s critical protein-making machinery in an advance with both practical, industrial applications and that advances the basic understanding of life’s workings.

Researchers find new molecule to block ‘Hedgehog’ signaling in cancer, development

404132862 — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:06:29 -0500

Researchers have achieved a feat drug developers had thought difficult, if not impossible, discovering a compound that blocks the functioning of a key developmental protein by binding to an “undruggable” target — an advance that may provide a new avenue to fight skin, pancreatic, prostate, and other cancers.

New label-free method tracks molecules and drugs in live cells

404132862 — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 12:24:13 -0500

A new type of highly sensitive microscopy developed by Harvard researchers could greatly expand the limits of modern biomedical imaging, allowing scientists to track the location of minuscule metabolites and drugs in living cells and tissues without the use of any kind of fluorescent labeling.

The technique, based on stimulated Raman scattering (SRS), works by detecting the vibrations in chemical bonds between atoms. SRS microscopy could provide scientists with a potent new form of real-time, three-dimensional bioimaging free of fluorescent labels that can hinder many biological processes.

Jeremy Knowles, eminent chemist, Harvard leader, 72

404132862 — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:32:05 -0400

Jeremy R. Knowles, an eminent chemist and longtime leader of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, died April 3 at his home in Cambridge, after a struggle with cancer.

Nanowire makes own electricity

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 13:41:55 -0400

Harvard chemists have built a new wire out of photosensitive materials that is hundreds of times smaller than a human hair. The wire not only carries electricity to be used in vanishingly small circuits, but generates power as well.

Charles M. Lieber, the Mark Hyman Jr. Professor of Chemistry, and colleagues created the nanowire out of three different kinds of silicon with different electrical properties. The silicon is wrapped in layers to create the wire. When light falls on the outer material, a process begins due to the interaction of the core with the shell layers, leading to the creation of electrical charges.

The work was described in the Oct. 18 issue of the journal Nature.

Nanowire generates its own electricity

404132862 — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 13:04:24 -0400

The work was described in the Oct. 18 issue of the journal Nature.

‘Speed limit’ found on rate of evolution

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 13:10:24 -0400

Harvard University scientists have identified a virtual “speed limit” on the rate of molecular evolution in organisms, and the magic number appears to be six mutations per genome per generation — a rate of change beyond which species run the strong risk of extinction as their genomes lose stability.

By modeling the stability of proteins required for an organism’s survival, Eugene Shakhnovich and his colleagues have discovered this essential thermodynamic limit on a species’ rate of evolution. Their discovery, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, draws a crucial connection between the physical properties of genetic material and the survival fitness of an entire organism.

Nine Harvard faculty members win NIH’s Pioneer, Innovator Awards

404132862 — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 16:16:46 -0400

Nine Harvard researchers "well-positioned to make significant - and potentially transformative - discoveries in a variety of areas," ranging from brain development to reprogramming stem cells, have been awarded special funding by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The grants, announced Tuesday (Sept. 18), total $15 million over the next five years. They will be distributed through two NIH grant programs, both overseen by NIH Director Elias Zerhouni. One, the NIH Director's Pioneer Award, funds established researchers with $2.5 million each. The second, the Director's New Innovator Award, gives $1.5 million each to young, promising investigators.

Biohybrid of elastic film and muscle cells packs a punch

50443248 — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 16:04:05 -0400

In an innovative marriage of living cells and a synthetic substrate, bioengineers at Harvard University have found that a rubberlike, elastic film coated with a single layer of cardiac muscle cells can semi-autonomously engage in lifelike gripping, pumping, walking, and swimming. The tissue engineering feat was reported in the Sept. 7 issue of the journal Science.

The researchers, led by Kevin Kit Parker and Adam W. Feinberg, report that the exact movement undertaken by these hybrid muscular thin films (MTFs) can be tailored by controlling muscle alignment relative to the shape of the flexible film. Some of the MTFs even contract spontaneously, an intrinsic property of cardiac muscle that allows the devices to move around without user intervention.