The Nobel Foundation was established by the will of Alfred B. Nobel, engineer and chemist, who died in 1895. The will funded annual prizes to “those who shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.” The prize in physics was to go to “the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention.” In 1912 the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Nils Gustaf Dalén, an enginee...

Tissue engineering based on stem cells has gained interest recently as attempts are made to engineer scaffold environments mimicking the stem cell niche, which contains a reservoir of multipotent stem cells that can maintain normal tissue or restore unhealthy cell populations in response to mechanisms of quiescence, self-renewal, and differentiation of the stem cells. These cell behaviors are g...

Should we use recombinant DNA techniques to create pigs genetically engineered to suit the preferences of fanners and consumers? In 1982, scientists injected a rat growth hormone gene into the chromosome of a mouse. The resultant animal expressed the rat gene and quickly grew to twice its parents' size.! In 1985, researchers at the United Slates Department ofAgriculture hoped to attain similar ...

Recent genome-wide screens of host genetic requirements for viral infection have reemphasized the critical role of host metabolism in enabling the production of viral particles. In this review, we highlight the metabolic aspects of viral infection found in these studies, and focus on the opportunities these requirements present for metabolic engineers. In particular, the objectives and approach...

All animals have an effect on the environment, but some key species – called ecosystem engineers – can have a particularly large influence. Their impact can be positive, by creating and maintaining habitats and increasing biodiversity, but they can also be negative, by destroying habitats and reducing biodiversity. Interestingly, the magnitude of the effect that an ecosystem engineer has on the...