A tiny bubble of lipids, enzymes and DNA has done something biologists have chased for years: it carried out a full cycle of ...

While many of life's mysteries remain unsolved, every biologist can describe the basic processes performed by a living ...

Artificial cells assembled from lifeless chemical components have been created to ingest nutrients, grow, divide into two, ...

Scientists built a synthetic cell that combines more lifelike properties than ever before — proof of concept that it’s possible to bring nonliving materials to life, or something close to it, in the ...

Every day, our bodies perform around 330 billion cell divisions to keep us alive and functioning. These divisions rely on the cell cycle, which has been in place since the earliest bacteria. The ...

About 100 cells divide every second in our body. A key protein in cell division is a protein kinase termed Plk1, because it activates other proteins involved in this process. Plk1 is also ...

The researchers, led by chemistry professor Zan Luthey-Schulten at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, present their findings in the journal Cell. In two videos, researchers describe the work ...

A simulated cell in the early stages of division. Left half shows membrane (green cubes), and ribosomes (yellow/purple) interwoven through in the cell’s chromosome (red). Right side shows all the ...

A simulated cell in the early stages of division. Left half shows cytoplasm (blue cubes), mRNA degradation machinery molecules (pink), and sugar transporters (brown). Right half adds the membrane ...