Living Cells News and Research

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First Atomic Level Images Reveal Blueprint for Better RNA Drugs

RNA interference is a natural mechanism for living cells to control whether specific genes are being used or not.

30 Jun 2026

Self-Propelled Actin Structures Drive Shape Changes in Human Cells

Every time a white blood cell engulfs a bacterium, a neuron extends a projection to connect with a neighboring cell, or when a cancer cell forcefully squeezes through tissue to spread, the cell must change its shape to accommodate the movement.

26 Jun 2026

Automated Cell-Free Systems Boost Protein Production Performance Five-Fold

A research team led by Professor Joongoo Lee in the Department of Chemical Engineering at POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology) has developed an automated, modular method for assembling reconstituted cell-free systems, which are test-tube systems that can produce proteins outside living cells.

25 Jun 2026

Real-Time Molecular Tool Observes Complex Immune System Changes

A lot of things need to go right on a molecular level for immune cells to launch an adaptive response to an infection.

24 Jun 2026

New Study Reveals How Introns Jump Between Species Without Viral Help

Jumping genes are parasites in the genetic material of bacteria, plants, animals and humans. They are released into the cell as small RNA molecules from ribonucleic acid (RNA) and possess complex mechanisms for inserting themselves into other parts of the genetic material within the cell, thereby often conferring new properties on the cell and thus accelerating evolution. There are also jumping genes that free themselves from the RNA using an RNA enzyme. These ribozymes or self-splicing introns are a special group of jumping genes.

22 Jun 2026

New Internal Cellular Process Creates Cysteine When Primary Systems Fail

A molecular geneticist at Montana State University has discovered a cellular process once believed impossible by scientists – the creation of the amino acid cysteine within a living cell when the cell's primary systems to do so fail.

13 Jun 2026

AI Decodes Biomolecular Condensates to Revolutionize Drug Discovery

Researchers at Princeton University have harnessed AI to understand how drugs affect the dynamics of vital structures within the cell.

13 Jun 2026

Collagen Exists as Liquid-Like Droplets Inside Cells

According to a recent study from the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona, collagen, the protein that forms skin, bones, tendons, and organs, occurs inside cells as a liquid-like droplet rather than the long, rigid rod portrayed in textbooks during the past fifty years.

12 Jun 2026

Cryo-EM Study Unlocks Structural Secrets of RNA Therapeutics

RNA therapeutics have emerged as one of the most promising new classes of medicines. Eight small interfering RNA (siRNA) drugs have already been approved worldwide for the treatment of genetic diseases, yet scientists have not fully understood one of the most fundamental steps underlying their function: how Argonaute, the core protein responsible for gene silencing, becomes activated.

11 Jun 2026

Coffee Can Now Serve as a Biological Switch for Medicines

For many of us, a warm cup of coffee is how we start our day. For Texas A&M Health researchers, it may also offer a new way to control engineered cells in future medicines.

9 Jun 2026

Novel Cyclic Peptides Cross Cell Membranes to Fight Disease

Many diseases are driven by proteins interacting with each other inside cells. But blocking these interactions with drugs is difficult because our typic "small-molecule" drugs often prove to be too small to grip the broad, flat surfaces involved in protein-protein interactions.

1 Jun 2026

Study Reveals Unique Heat Behavior Within Living Cells

Living cells cool much slower than our current understanding of heat conduction can explain, according to new research from the University of Tokyo. Researchers used two techniques - high-speed temperature mapping and artificial heating - to observe how heat dissipated from living cells and similar-sized artificial, fluid-filled sacs (liposomes).

29 May 2026

Scientists Reveal How Surface Acids Prevent Bacteria From Blobbing

Researchers have discovered how acids on the surface of bacteria give these microscopic organisms their characteristic "rod" shape-by keeping an enzyme at bay that would otherwise turn the cylindrical cells into shape-shifting blobs.

27 May 2026

AI Designs Custom Miniproteins to Precisely Control Cell Receptors

G protein-coupled receptors, or GPCRs, sit in the plasma membrane, the boundary that defines the inside and outside of a living cell. They communicate with nearly every physiological process in our bodies - from the ability to see and smell, to sensing of adrenaline, insulin, nutrients and medicines.

22 May 2026