Some resources and tools related to noncoding RNAs

In ‘Meet some code-breakers of noncoding RNAs,’ the technology feature in the February issue of Nature Methods, we speak with a few scientists about the path ahead in methods for characterize the noncoding RNAs.  Read more

Computable sugars: some computational resources in glycoscience

Glycoscience is sweet science

As glycoscience advances, labs will increasingly want to ask questions about glycosylation sites on a protein or the structure of a sugar, says Raja Mazumder, a bioinformatician at George Washington University. They might ask for example: are there glycosyltransferases that are expressed in liver but not in the heart, or, which ones are overexpressed by a factor of three in more than two cancers. Such questions require infrastructure building, he says, because right now there is no mechanism to allow such queries. But he and others are building such capabilities. Mazumder along with William York at the University of Georgia are starting to build a glycoscience informatics portal.  Read more

Sequencing: Ship-Seq sails the seas

Leonid Moroz diving in Palau, collecting Nautilus.

To study a primordial nervous system, Leonid Moroz brings the tools of biology to the open sea. Nature Methods spoke with the neurobiologist turned sea adventurer. Meet neurobiologist Leonid Moroz of the University of Florida, the inventor of Ship-Seq. His hair is not always this wild, although his ideas tend to be.  Read more