On what would be his 96th birthday, Khorana was honored by the daily Google doodle for his Nobel Prize-winning work deciphering the genetic code.
CATHERINE NICOLE STEFFEL
Cracking the code of coenzyme Q biosynthesis
Coenzyme Q is a vital cog in the body’s energy-producing machinery, a kind of chemical gateway in the conversion of food into cellular fuel. But six decades removed from its discovery, scientists still can’t describe exactly how and when it is made.
Chimpanzee deaths in Uganda pinned on human cold virus
In the wild, chimpanzees face any number of dire threats, ranging from poachers to predators to deforestation. That’s why scientists, investigating an outbreak of respiratory disease in a community of wild chimpanzees in Uganda’s Kibale National Park, were surprised and dismayed to discover that a human “common cold” virus known as rhinovirus C was killing healthy chimps.
Biochemistry, energy researcher named to 2017 “Highly Cited” list
John Ralph, biochemistry professor and researcher with the Wisconsin Energy Institute (WEI), has been named to Clarivate Analytics’ 2017 list of “Highly Cited Researchers.”
Designer molecule points to treatment for diseases caused by DNA repeats
Researchers have designed a molecule that targets short sequences of DNA that repeat many times, including those that cause the rare but fatal disease Friedreich’s ataxia.
Biochemistry undergraduate alumnus helps lead diagnostic laboratory
Only a little more than a decade out of his biochemistry undergraduate degree, Michael Rummel is an owner in and the chief operating officer of an independent laboratory based in Southern California named InSource Diagnostics. …
Crystallizing science, one protein at a time
It’s square one. It’s step one. It puts the “basic” in basic science. How ever you describe it, understanding protein structure and function through what’s called X-ray crystallography is an important approach in many areas of biochemistry, including drug design. And it’s a technique many researchers in the Department of Biochemistry at UW–Madison specialize in.
Students find passion in labs as Undergraduate Summer Research Scholars
Hannah Poe peers into a large microscope in the Hector F. DeLuca Biochemical Sciences Building, seeing not just florescent molecules of RNA, but also a future career in biochemistry research. Poe is about to start …
Undergrad alum’s career combines biochemistry, agriculture
An upbringing on a Wisconsin dairy farm, combined with an interest in biochemistry, led 2008 biochemistry undergraduate alum Jacob Karlen to a career overseeing technology used to chemically analyze agricultural forage. During the first semester …
Cryo-EM facility coming to department to serve campus researchers
Structural biology and collaboration are two strong and enduring aspects of research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In keeping with this tradition, the Department of Biochemistry has led a concerted cross-campus effort to bring cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) to campus.