When bacteria interact, they give off cellular signals that can trigger a response in their neighbors, causing them to behave in different ways or produce different substances. For example, they can communicate to coordinate movement away from danger or to emit light to ward off predators.
IMB
Institute of Molecular Biophysics
Debra Ann Fadool is a Distinguished Research Professor holding appointments in the Department of Biological Science, the Program in Neuroscience and the Institute of Molecular Biophysics; all units of Florida State University’s College of Arts and Sciences.
While technologies like X-rays allow us to create pictures of the inside of the human body, imaging on a molecular level is much more complicated. Cryogenic electron microscopy, or cryo-EM, allows scientists to reconstruct protein complexes, like viruses and antibodies, in three dimensions at nearly atomic-level resolutions.
Long before he became a distinguished research professor of mathematics at Florida State University, Richard Bertram was a curious graduate student who joined the Society for Mathematical Biology in hopes of further connecting his interests and research in math and biology. He first attended the organization’s annual meeting in the early 1990s on his own, without knowing anyone there.
Florida State University’s Institute of Molecular Biophysics is bringing together a set of international experts to share scientific ideas about cryoelectron microscopy, or cryo-EM, and molecular mechanisms of various biological processes on May 13-14 during the Kenneth A. Taylor Symposium on Cryo-EM and Muscle Biology.
Behrouz Ghazi Esfahani is a doctoral student in the Institute of Molecular Biophysics, part of Florida State University’s College of Arts and Sciences. As a current research assistant, he is working on the project “Structure determination of the methionine tRNA synthetase (MetRS).” His past projects include “Optimizing the biological denitrification using nano-particles.”
Donald Caspar, professor emeritus in Florida State University’s Institute of Molecular Biophysics and a celebrated scientist who spent much of his career studying viruses, died Nov. 27. He was 94.
Hamidreza Rahmani’s biophysics research may pave the way for new heart treatments
What can a water bug tell us about the human heart? The answer could one day save your life. Physics doctoral candidate and interdisciplinary researcher Hamidreza Rahmani is analyzing flight muscle contractions of a Thai giant water bug, Lethocerus indicus, because of its similarities to human heart muscles.
Florida State University researchers have new insight into the tiny packages that cells use to move molecules, a structure that is key to cellular metabolism, drug delivery and more. Their research uncovered more about the proteins that form the outer structure of those cellular packages. The work was published in the journal Science Advances.
Longstanding collaboration drives duo's diabetes research
The islets of Langerhans sounds like an exotic destination — a South Sea archipelago with swaying palm trees, white sands and pristine waters. Though they have nothing to do with geography, the islets of Langerhans are indeed exotic and mysterious, scientifically speaking.
Donald Caspar helped put the field of structural biology on the map
At 92, Donald Caspar is still working to develop a greater understanding of some of the smallest living things.
A Florida State University researcher is headed to South Africa on an international fellowship to collaborate with researchers at the University of Johannesburg to help them develop an integrated lab system for university researchers that will better allow faculty to collaborate and innovate.