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SONG OF DARWIN. "The more I study nature, the more I become impressed […] that the contrivances and beautiful adaptations [acquired through natural selection] transcend in an incomparable degree [those] which the most fertile imagination of the most imaginative man could suggest with unlimited time at his disposal." (CD). http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982214003881 View in LinkedIn

"SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY describes the engineering of biological parts and whole systems by either modifying natural organisms or building new biosystems from scratch. To date, most proteins used as parts in synthetic biology are taken from nature. Utilizing naturally evolved proteins has led to numerous successful applications in biotechnology." https://lnkd.in/dJawhaB View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this fragment of historical interest that continues to survive controversy, and with new methods has vindicated an old finding that used problematic procedures. That a memory trace can survive regeneration in planaria is an intriguing finding. More, that a molecule can contain such detailed information as a specific behavior. A memory encoded in a molecule that can be reawakened in a new host. Remarkable. View in LinkedIn

"DIRECTED EVOLUTION mimics natural evolution in the laboratory (in vitro), but operates on a molecular level (i.e. no new organisms are created) and focuses on specific molecular properties." https://lnkd.in/dPAZwtD View in LinkedIn

NEW PHASE OF RESEARCH OPENS. "Moreover, this memory survives long enough to allow full regeneration after amputation. Remarkably, headless fragments, regenerated from original environment-familiarized worms, display significant environmental familiarity in a savings paradigm." http://jeb.biologists.org/content/216/20/3799 View in LinkedIn

EMPIRICAL METHOD. "Most protein structures are so complex that it’s nearly impossible to predict how altering their structure will affect their function. So the trial-and-error approach of directed evolution is usually the fastest way to come up with a new protein with desirable traits." https://lnkd.in/dQTrNcQ View in LinkedIn

SEMI-SYNTHETIC ORGANISM. "Organisms are defined by the information encoded in their genomes, and since the origin of life this information has been encoded using a two-base-pair genetic alphabet (A–T and G–C). In vitro, the alphabet has been expanded to include several unnatural base pairs (UBPs)." View in LinkedIn

WATSON AND CRICK'S DOUBLE HELIX just expanded to four. "G-quadruplexes, so-called because they form in guanine-rich DNA sequences, are not just a structural curiosity - they form at sites across the genome in living cells. Cancers are usually driven by genes called oncogenes that have mutated to increase DNA replication - causing cell proliferation to spiral out of control, and leading to tumour growth. The increased DNA replication rate during oncogenesis leads to an intensity in the quadruplex structures." https://lnkd.in/dn_e5kr View in LinkedIn

DNA STRAND TRANSFER. "Our results show that the human prion protein (huPrP) functionally resembles NCp7 of HIV-1. Both proteins form large nucleoprotein complexes upon binding to DNA. They accelerate the hybridization of complementary DNA strands and chaperone viral DNA synthesis during the minus and plus DNA strand transfers necessary to generate the long terminal repeats." https://lnkd.in/dfswmuf View in LinkedIn

"THE PRION PROTEIN has DNA strand transfer properties similar to retroviral nucleocapsid protein." https://lnkd.in/dfswmuf View in LinkedIn