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Animation on fluid mosaic model of plasma membrane

Welcome to the interactive model of leaf decomposition (I*MOLD). The goal of this project is to explain leaf decomposition and how it relates to the Earth's carbon cycle and climate. This website contains a series of animated lessons about decomposition, an interactive model that lets you predict how different types of leaves will decompose in different climates, and classroom activities about decomposition for teachers.

Species like yeast, flies, fish and mice have many genes in common with humans and are therefore considered 'model organisms' and are widely used in research to study human genes and human diseases. Mouse research has lead to major advances in our ability to treat a number of serious diseases and conditions.

Calorie restriction has long been studied as a way to extend lifespan in animals. It has been associated with the ability to reduce the risks of cardiovascular and other diseases and to improve overall health. Now, researchers at Chang Gung University in Taiwan have found that calorie restriction can ...

The team was grafting skin from one strain of mice to another. The new skin tended to get destroyed by the recipient animals' immune systems. But when the group injected cells from the donor mice into developing fetuses, the mice that were born were much more likely to accept the skin graft. It seemed they had been primed to the foreign cells while in the womb, and developed a tolerance.

SAN ANTONIO -- Scientists at a South Texas research center made a breakthrough discovery by destroying the Ebola virus in animals through a Chinese herb. Texas Biomedical Research Center said a compound derived from the herb called tetrandrine was used to make a drug. He says his team injected mice with the drug.

 is a web-based library of inquiry-based character-driven animated mysteries paired with differentiated supplemental activities that exposes students to the thrill of problem-solving. Mosa Mack allows educators to engage students while teaching standards-aligned content in a fun and engaging way while modeling scientific processing skills. Through its female protagonist whose passion for problem solving drives each story, Mosa Mack promotes diversity in the sciences while simultaneously providing teachers with an accessible way to incorporate inquiry into the classroom. Mosa Mack's unique inquiry-based approach targets the development of critical thinking skills for all students, with a particular focus on girls and minorities with historically low participation STEM fields.

Promising animal model work utilizing gene therapy.

The laboratory-based animal study found a link between greater susceptibility to obesity and diabetes, and whether one's ancestors have been undernourished for several generations, and was published on Friday in the journal Cell Metabolism.

A study in monkeys offers the first evidence that a leading drug developed to fight Ebola works against the strain causing the current outbreak in West Africa. Six animals were infected with a very high dose of the virus and then, three days later, half were given the drug, TKM-Ebola-Makona, which was designed specifically to fight the West African strain. The monkeys that received the drug survived, but all three untreated monkeys died, researchers reported on Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Sonnenburg, his wife Erica, and the graduate student Samuel Smits confirmed this idea in a recent experiment. The researchers started with mice that had been raised in sterile bubbles and then loaded with identical collections of gut microbes. They then fed these mice a high-fiber diet, before randomly switching half of them to low-fiber chow for seven weeks. Predictably, the fall in fiber caused upheavals in the rodents' guts. In the low-fiber group, the numbers of 60 percent of the local microbe species fell dramatically, and some remained low even after the mice returned to high-fiber meals. Those seven low-fiber weeks left lingering scars on the animals' microbiomes.

Scientists have genetically engineered monkeys so that they exhibit behaviors similar to autism, with a goal of testing potential therapies on the animals in hopes that their resemblance to humans will yield more answers about the disorder. The scientists found that the monkeys showed "very similar behaviors related to human autism patients, including repetitive behaviors, increased anxiety and, most importantly, defects in social interactions," said Zilong Qiu, a leader of the research at the Institute of Neuroscience at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai. The team is now imaging the brains of the monkeys, he said, "trying to identify the deficiency in the brain circuits that is responsible for the autism-like behavior."

Recombinant DNA technology for  human insulin AAT for emphysema GMOs for commercial value or simulate human conditions in animal models.

Animal model remyelination study

Unlike the rats favoured as animal models for many other diseases, dogs develop haemophilia naturally, have enough blood to contribute to research studies and live long enough to reveal long-term outcomes of treatments. "We have a 60-year track record now showing that if it works well in dogs, it's likely going to work well in humans," says Nichols.

Naked mole rats are hairless, blind, underground dwellers that are remarkably impervious to cancer. But why you ask? Well, researchers at the University of Rochester asked that same question and it turns out a cluster of genes, called the INK4 locus, is the answer. This locus, also found in humans and mice, uses that cluster to carry instructions, or encode, for several cancer fighting proteins.

A new study shows that gene editing using CRISPR/Cas9 technology can work in rhesus monkey embryos. The results, published in the current issue of Human Molecular Genetics, open the door for pursuing gene editing in nonhuman primates as models for new therapies, including pharmacological, gene-, and stem cell-based therapies, says Keith Latham, animal science professor at Michigan State University and lead author of the study.

This two-minute video provides brief background on the use of zebrafish as a model in studying animal development, before showing a time-lapse sequence of a fertilized zebrafish egg developing into a larva.  The video includes some annotations that help orient the viewer during the time-lapse sequence.  Teachers might want to mute the narration beginning at 0:42 min to avoid giving students too much information.  This phenomenon could stimulate the following driving questions: How does the zebrafish develop from one cell to the many cells that make up the larva? How do the zebrafish cells divide? How are the developing zebrafish cells similar and different from each other? If all cells in the zebrafish develop from the same original cell, then how do some cells develop differently than others? How are cell division and growth related? 

A zebrafish model of a rare genetic disease has revealed an unexpected regulatory pathway for cholesterol absorption and processing. The findings, reported in the Journal of Molecular Medicine, were "quite surprising and have the potential to teach us about the basic physiology of cholesterol management," said Ela Knapik, M.D., associate professor of Medicine and Cell and Developmental Biology.

In a first, scientists led by Kamel Khalili, director of the Comprehensive NeuroAIDS Center at Temple University, report in the journal Gene Therapy that they have for the first time successfully eliminated HIV genes from the genomes of mice and rats infected with the virus.