Tag Archive | Molecular Engineering
How HIV Builds its Suit of Armor
Reblogged from ScaleOut: At the molecular level, science is often a series of snapshots. With the most advanced imaging techniques, researchers can magnify targets over a million times, allowing them to examine structures as small as an Ångstrom. But in order to achieve this incredible resolution, most techniques require their targets to be fixed in […]
No Senioritis Here: Pritzker Senior Scientific Session 2012
By Rob Mitchum As the weather warms and the flowers bloom in Chicago, it’s a sign that convocation and various other end-of-the-year events are approaching. One springtime tradition for the Pritzker School of Medicine is the annual Senior Scientific Session, where students on the verge of receiving their medical degrees discuss the research project they […]
A Nano-Vehicle to Fight Brain Cancer
By Rob Mitchum Treating a brain tumor in a lab dish is easy. Scientists have developed a full arsenal of treatments to kill tumor cells, using natural toxins, chemotherapeutic drugs, and even gene therapy to send them to an early grave. But making those therapies work in the actual setting of the brain is a […]
Linkage 8/12: Physicians of Tomorrow & Molecular Furniture
Medical school isn’t cheap. Today, medical students graduate with an average debt over $155,000, and the need to pay off those mortgage-sized loans drives many a young doctor away from more modestly compensated but sorely needed fields such as primary care and family medicine. To alleviate this financial pressure, many organizations have started scholarships to […]
The Flaws That Made Us Complex
One common misconception about evolution is that it produces “better” organisms with time – a seductive opinion to humans who would like to think of themselves as the pinnacle of natural selection. In a way, it’s an easy error to make, for who would look at a single-celled bacterium next to a human and think […]
Living Devices & Biomaterials – A Chief Molecular Engineer is Named
Late last year, we relayed the announcement of an exciting new academic program here at the University of Chicago, the Institute of Molecular Engineering. At the time, the IME had a future home (sharing the new William Eckhardt Research Center with the Physical Sciences Division) and a vision, but did not yet have a leader. […]
A Locksmith & The Immune Army
The immune system relies heavily on memory and recognition, with its success dependent on marshaling defenses against only the right infectious invaders. Scientists are finding that this memory requires a lot of moving parts, including molecules that grab pieces of bacteria and viruses, specialized cells that can determine whether those pieces are dangerous or not, […]
A New Building, A New Discipline
Today, the University of Chicago announced plans to construct the William Eckhardt Research Center, an innovative new building along Ellis Avenue that will be home to many researchers in the physical sciences. But just as newsworthy as the new building is one of its prominent tenants: the Institute for Molecular Engineering, the largest new department […]
Linkage 11/12: Bacterial Concrete and Ethics Fest
Here in Chicago, we’re entering the second of our two seasons: transitioning from “Construction” into “Winter.” The rampant highway repair that happens during warm weather months is largely due to the stresses of the cold weather months, which leave our roads cracked and potholed. But perhaps we’ll be saved from all that misery if a […]
