Biology Department Featured Videos

Presented by Jörg Schwender
Charting Plant Metabolism: Quantification of Metabolic Fluxes and Predictive Mathematical Models.

Presented by Allen Orville
Orville presents “Getting More From Less: Correlated Single-Crystal Spectroscopy and X-ray Crystallography at the NSLS” in which he discusses how researchers can use many different tools and techniques to study atomic structure and electronic structure to provide insights into chemistry.

Niels van der Lelie
"Scientists Identify Bacteria That Increase Plant Growth"
Findings have implications for increasing biomass for the production of biofuels.

Presented by Walter Mangel
"'Molecular Sleds' and More: Novel Antiviral Agents via Single Molecule Biology," in which he discusses antiviral agents, and in particular, the breakthrough work in this field being done in his lab in the Biology Department.

Presented by Huilin Li
Proteins that cleave other proteins using a molecule of water, protease complexes are exquisite macromolecular machines involved in a multitude of physiological and cellular reactions. Our structural studies shed light into the inner workings of multi-protein assemblies, and they reveal a surprisingly common strategy for controlled proteolysis employed by the two drastically different machines. Further research will facilitate rational design of drugs for treating Tb infection and Alzheimer's disease.

Protein biochemist John Shanklin presents an overview of BNL's Life Sciences research for summer tour visitors to the Laboratory and the Biology Department.

Presented by Dax Fu
"Molecular Design of a Metal Transporter." Metal transporters are proteins residing in cell membranes that keep the amount of zinc and other metals in the body in check by selecting a nutritional metal ion against a similar and much more abundant toxic one. How transporter proteins achieve this remarkable sensitivity is one of the questions addressed by Fu in this lecture.

Scientists Develop Protein-Sequence Analysis Tool

With more and more protein sequences available, scientists are increasingly looking for ways to extract the subset of information that determines a protein's function. Now scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory have written a computer program 'to sort the informational wheat from the chaff' said Brookhaven biochemist John Shanklin, who leads the research team.

International Team Presents Finished Sequence of Rice Genome

With this map-based sequence, you can use known genetic markers to locate the actual genes that underlie traits such as insect resistance, drought resistance, or higher seed yield, and more efficiently combine rice strains with these beneficial genetic traits, said Brookhaven biologist Benjamin Burr, who has served as IRGSP project coordinator since its inception in 1998.

Presented by Ben Burr
"Genetically Modified Plants: What's the Fuss?" Burr explains that the risks presented by conventional plant improvement and gene-transfer technology have been reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Food & Drug Administration. These groups have concluded that gene-transfer technology poses no risk or danger above that present in conventional plant breeding.

This 6:40 minute video by the Research Resource for Macromolecular Crystallography at the NSLS (PXRR) explains specimen preparation to prospective users of our cryogenic crystal automounters. The fluid narrative by Alexei Soares provides a good introduction to current techniques that make best use of our crystallography facilities at the NSLS.

Study Finds Plant Enzyme Function Changes with Location in Cell

Scientists have long thought that individual enzymes have specific, single jobs dependent on their molecular shape. Now, biochemist John Shanklin and Ingo Heilman have discovered another factor that can change several plant enzymes' functions instantaneously: their location within the cell. Depending on where these enzymes end up, they produce slightly different products.

In this 3:30 minute video Joe Wall summarizes the unique capabilities of the custom-built Biology STEM as well as the role of scanning transmission microscopy and cryo-electron microscopy as a tool for reseachers in structural biology. The STEM entertains a productive outside user program managed by Joe Wall and Jim Hainfeld, and the cro-EM primarily supports in-house research by Huilin Li and his colleagues in Biology.

Presented Robert Sweet
A description of how crystallography methods work and how several results obtained using the NSLS have impacted biological science.