Cytosine

• The 2023 Nobel Prize for chemistry isn’t the first Nobel awarded for research in nanotechnology.
• But it is perhaps the most colorful application of the technology to be associated with the accolade.
• This year’s prize recognizes Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov for the discovery and development of quantum dots.
• Quantum dots brilliantly fluoresce: They absorb one color of light and reemit it nearly instantaneously as another color.

Skip chemical bonds, rely on quantum physics

• For instance, some of the earliest dyes started with a clear substance such as analine, transformed through chemical reactions to the desired hue.
• Rather than depending on chemical bonds to determine the wavelengths of light they absorb and emit, they rely on very small clusters of semiconducting materials.
• Early quantum dots were often based on cadmium selenide for instance – the component materials of which are toxic.
• And yet, quantum dots are a pivotal part of a technology transition that’s revolutionizing how people work with atoms and molecules.

‘Base coding’ on an atomic level

• This concept is intuitive when it comes to computing, where programmers use the “base code” of 1,s and 0’s, albeit through higher level languages.
• This ability to work with base codes also extends to the material world.
• Here, the code is made up of atoms and molecules and how they are arranged in ways that lead to novel properties.
• Bawendi, Brus and Ekimov’s work on quantum dots is a perfect example of this form of material-world base coding.

• Under the licensing agreement, Watchmaker may develop and commercialize the TAPS technology under its own brand.
• DNA methylation patterns offer dynamic and rich insights into the status of both healthy and diseased tissue.
• In addition to the development and licensing agreement, the companies have entered into a long-term strategic supply agreement.
• Under its terms, Watchmaker will provide Exact Sciences with access to its portfolio of best-in-class sequencing reagents and precision enzymes.

• PHILADELPHIA, PA, Aug. 22, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Now, scientists at The Wistar Institute have discovered a potential target for gastric cancers associated with Epstein-Barr Virus; study results were published in the journal mBio .
• In the paper, Wistar’s Tempera lab investigates the epigenetic characteristics of gastric cancer associated with the Epstein-Barr Virus: EBVaGC.
• "Normally, a latent virus that reactivates and starts to kill cells is a bad thing.
• Because lysis is lethal to cells, the epigenetic reactivation of lysis within gastric cancer associated with EBV offers a promising potential treatment for the specific subset of EBVaGC.

• The universality of the genetic code indicates a common ancestry among all living organisms and the essential role this code plays in the structure, function and regulation of biological cells.
• Understanding how the genetic code works is the foundation of genetic engineering and synthetic biology.
• Just as computers need strings of binary code to function, biological processes also rely on bits of information.

Different words for the same thing

• Ribosomes read three-letter words called codons, and there are 64 different possible combinations of the four letters that make different codons.
• In this list of 64 words, 61 encode amino acids, and three signal the ribosome to stop protein synthesis in the cell.
• In fact, since there are only 20 amino acids but 61 different words to encode them, there is quite a lot of overlap.

Engineering nature’s guidelines

• The mapping of the 61 codes onto the the 20 amino acids would be roughly equal, with each amino acid assigned three codons.
• Not only does the final form of a protein need to be optimal, but so do its intermediate forms.
• Scientists understand some of the guidelines that nature follows when engineering the genetic code.

Information theory and genetics

• Nature’s affinity for optimization using this irrational number is responsible for the infinitely repeating fractals seen in jagged shorelines, fern leaves, snowflakes and trees.
• Beyond biology, information optimization using e also has applications in mathematics and cosmology.
• Entropy is a measure of disorder in a system, and the maximum entropy principle states that systems evolve to states of greater disorder.
• Although there are many biological mysteries that scientists have yet to solve, information theory can be a powerful tool to help crack the genetic code.