Molecular Biology and the Future of Plant Propagation

1995 ◽  
Vol 112 (5) ◽  
pp. P88-P89
Author(s):  
Norris K. Lee

Educational objectives: To understand basic molecular biological concepts and breakthroughs as they apply to the head and neck cancer model and to envision the future of head and neck cancer treatment, within the context of molecular biology.


Author(s):  
Luis Campos

This chapter explores the intersection between two related fields: synthetic biology and astrobiology. Pushing the engineering of life past traditional limits in molecular biology and expanding the envelope of life to forms never before extant, synthetic biologists are now beginning to design experimental ways of getting at what astrobiologists have long suspected: that the life known here on Earth is but a subset of vast combinatorial possibilities in the universe. The resonances between the future engineered possibilities of this world and speculations about possible biologies on habitable others are not merely happenstance. Indeed, there is a curious and compelling deeper history interlinking scientific speculation about new forms of life elsewhere in the universe with visions for the human-directed engineering of new forms of life on Earth. For decades, the astrobiological and the synthetic biological have mutually inspired each other and overlapped in powerful genealogical ways.


1968 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 348-389 ◽  

Hermann Joseph Muller died on 5 April 1967, at the age of 76, after several years of struggle with a heart condition. Biology has lost one of its outstanding pioneers and leaders. His decisive contributions—both in theory and in experiments, many of them in advance of his time—opened and marked step by step the trail from the Mendelism of the 1910’s to the molecular biology of the 1960’s. His last two papers—prepared in 1965 and 1966—‘The gene material as the initiator and the organizing basis of life’ (369) * and ‘What genetic course will man steer?’ (372)—give a grand view of that trail, of where it has led and of which biological issues the knowledge so acquired presents to mankind. In the public mind Muller’s eminence is based on his vast and profound contributions to experimental genetics, his discovery of the mutagenic effects of ionizing radiations—which motivated the award of the Nobel Prize in 1946—and his efforts to make the genetic hazards of radiations understood and to limit these hazards. There is a widespread tendency to dismiss his concern for the future course of human evolution, and in particular his practical proposals for voluntary germinal choice, as senile deviations, amusing if they were not fraught with danger. Two facts show how wrong is this belief. * Numbers in parentheses refer to publication number in list of published works. Sentences in inverted commas without numbers are from two autobiographical manuscripts of 1936 and 1941, respectively.


1995 ◽  
Vol 15 (44-45) ◽  
pp. 22-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Shakespeare

This article attempts to put developments in molecular biology into the broader context of disability rights and the relationship between disabled people and medical science. It includes a critique of biologi cal reduclionism and of the role of the media in inflating 'back-to- basics biology'. The article suggests that disabled people have not been consulted or involved in debates around the new genetics and that a wider discussion of these developments is urgently needed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 122
Author(s):  
Richiardi, L.

In times of pandemics, it is inevitable for dissertations to revolve around epidemics and that cost efficient cure that can save most lives. Much has already been written about vaccines and much more will be published in the future. When tracing the history of vaccines, authors often begin with the Jenner’s revolutionary technique, and follow its evolution up to the present day. But one’s technique or discovery, however ingenious and innovative, does not originate from thin air. Since the dawn of days, the genus Homo had to deal with infectious and non-comunicable diseases, trying to tackle them with the cultural means that were available at any given time. “Producing the first vaccine was therefore a long and fascinating adventure of human ingenuity”. I want then to retrace this path with what archeology, molecular biology, literature and history have to offer, placing Edward Jenner’s work as the culmination of our journey KEY WORDS history of medicine; epidemics; vaccines.


2021 ◽  
pp. 124-155
Author(s):  
Dennis B. Egli

Abstract This chapter addresses some of the challenges and opportunities facing agriculture and humankind in the years ahead. It focuses on climate change, molecular biology, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), variety improvement, precision agriculture, and new crops.


1992 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 265-269
Author(s):  
Brian Anderton ◽  
Robert Kerwin

During the 1988/89 academic year the Department of Neuroscience was formed at the Institute of Psychiatry from the former Departments of Biochemistry and Pharmacology. The University agreed to the establishment of a new Chair of Neuroscience to accompany this academic initiative and to which Professor Brian Anderton was appointed in 1989. In 1989, a new Lecturer in Molecular Biology, Dr John Powell, was appointed as well as a Clinical Senior Lecturer jointly with the Department of Psychiatry, Dr Robert Kerwin; this latter post was a new post under the UFC New Clinical Appointments Scheme. These changes have led to a strengthening of the molecular and cellular neurobiological interests of this new department and will influence the future academic aims of the Department of Neuroscience and Institute of Psychiatry as a whole.


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