News: Molecular Biosciences
Read the latest news from the College of Natural Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin
UT News
Chemistry in Mold Reveals Important Clue for Pharmaceuticals
In a discovery from the lab of Jessie Zhang that holds promise for future drug development, scientists have detected for the first time how nature...
![Overall structure of FtmOx1, a mold enzyme that helps produce a toxin by adding a pair of oxygen atoms.](/sites/default/files/uploads/images/default/ftmox1-700.jpg)
Visualizing Science 2015: Beautiful Images From College Research
As part of a continuing tradition, we invited faculty, staff and students in the College of Natural Sciences community to send us images this past...
![A map of DNA fragments sequenced from the Gulf of Mexico dead zone. The dead zone is an area of low oxygen in the Gulf. Each square is a different DNA fragment from the water. The colored groupings—based on similar DNA sequence composition—represent genomes of newly discovered species that are important to the ecosystem.](/sites/default/files/uploads/images/default/vissci2015-01-1st_baker.jpg)
Study Shows Common Molecular Tool Kit Organisms Share Across Tree of Life
Researchers at UT Austin discovered the assembly instructions for nearly 1,000 protein complexes shared by most kinds of animals.
![Researchers created the world’s largest protein map, identifying nearly 1,000 protein complexes that are shared across the tree of life. This image shows a small portion of that map.](/sites/default/files/uploads/images/default/b2ap3_large_protein-map700.jpeg)
Beauty and the Yeast
The lowly yeast turns out to be a powerful model organism for understanding human biology and disease
![A microscope image of the internal features of a yeast cell](/sites/default/files/uploads/images/default/yeast2400x1350.png)
UT News
Genetic Road Map May Bring About Better Cotton Crops
A University of Texas at Austin scientist, working with an international research team, has developed the most precise sequence map yet of U.S. cotton and...
![Dr. Z. Jeff Chen inspects a cotton plant in a campus greenhouse. Photo: Marsha Miller](/sites/default/files/uploads/images/default/jeff_chen_with_cotton-700.jpg)
Freshmen Fight Cyber Attacks and Other Societal Threats
College freshmen involved in UT Austin's Freshman Research Initiative work in labs on the real-world problem of System Security.
![Students at a table in the GDC atrium looking at laptop computers and sharing their coding projects.](/sites/default/files/uploads/images/default/4-3-demo-days-computer-science.jpg)
Two Assistant Professors Win CAREER Awards from National Science Foundation
The CAREER awards are intended to recognize promising young faculty and support their research with five years of funding.
![Işil Dillig and Ilya Finkelstein](/sites/default/files/uploads/images/default/careerblogimage.jpg)
Freshman Research Initiative Students Published in Nature Genetics
The groundbreaking Freshman Research Initiative (FRI) program at The University of Texas at Austin helped a pair of students put a coveted feather in their...
![The fibrous roots of white Albina Vereduna beets (control plant, left) turn red when they overexpress a particular transcription factor that upregulates red betalain pigment production (right).](/sites/default/files/uploads/images/default/overexpressionbvmyb-782.jpg)
Trapping a Bacterium in a Laser Beam Aids Study of Biofilms
Biofilms are responsible for most chronic infections and are notoriously resilient and hard to treat.
![Two-channel fluorescence image of a stamped pattern of P. aeruginosa in an isotropic background of S. aureus at t = 6 h, after the initial pattern has developed into a localized cluster.](/sites/default/files/uploads/images/default/figure0-700x420.jpg)