W. Zacheus Cande: Evolutionary biologist in cell biologist's clothing. Interview by Ruth Williams

Zac Cande wants to get to the roots of cell division and cytoskeletal mechanics.     

Anthony Hyman: from unlikely scientist to Royal Society Fellow. Interview by Ruth Williams

Hyman tinkers with cellular machines in his Dresden workshop     

Oliver Rando: taking chromatin analysis to the genomic scale. Interview by Ruth Williams

Oliver Rando uses microarrays to uncover the chromatin rules of genome usage.     

Jidong Liu: probing P-bodies for the secrets of silencing. Interview by Ruth Williams

Jidong Liu tackles the many unanswered questions of RNAi.     

Biosensors based on the energy metabolism of living cells: the physical chemistry and cell biology of extracellular acidification.

The silicon microphysiometer is a biosensor-based instrument that detects changes in the physiological state of cultured living cells by monitoring the rate at which the cells excrete acidic products of metabolism. This paper discusses the chemical and biological factors that determine the performance and applications of such a system. Under typical culture conditions, extracellular acidification is dominated by the excretion of lactic and carbonic acids formed during the energy metabolism, using glucose and glutamine as carbon sources. The maintenance of transmembrane ionic gradients is an important use of energy, as is cell growth. The activation of cellular receptors usually causes transient or sustained increases in acidification rate. The energetic cost of generating second messengers is probably too small to account for either change, so events more distal to the receptor-activation process must be responsible. The opening of ion channels may cause the increases in some cases. In others, changes in intracellular pH and loose coupling between ATP hydrolysis and synthesis may be involved; models for these processes are presented.     

A guide into glycosciences: How chemistry,biochemistry and biology cooperate to crack the sugar code

BackgroundThe most demanding challenge in research on molecular aspects within the flow of biological information is posed by the complex carbohydrates (glycan part of cellular glycoconjugates). How the ‘message’ encoded in carbohydrate ‘letters’ is ‘read’ and ‘translated’ can only be unraveled by interdisciplinary efforts.Scope of reviewThis review provides a didactic step-by-step survey of the concept of the sugar code and the way strategic combination of experimental approaches characterizes structure–function relationships, with resources for teaching.Major conclusionsThe unsurpassed coding capacity of glycans is an ideal platform for generating a broad range of molecular ‘messages’. Structural and functional analyses of complex carbohydrates have been made possible by advances in chemical synthesis, rendering production of oligosaccharides, glycoclusters and neoglycoconjugates possible. This availability facilitates to test the glycans as ligands for natural sugar receptors (lectins). Their interaction is a means to turn sugar-encoded information into cellular effects. Glycan/lectin structures and their spatial modes of presentation underlie the exquisite specificity of the endogenous lectins in counterreceptor selection, that is, to home in on certain cellular glycoproteins or glycolipids.General significanceUnderstanding how sugar-encoded ‘messages’ are ‘read’ and ‘translated’ by lectins provides insights into fundamental mechanisms of life, with potential for medical applications.     

Successful theory development in biology: A consideration of the theories of oxidative phosphorylation proposed by Davies and Krebs,Williams and Mitchell

The chemiosmotic theory is normally attributed to Peter Mitchell's formulation published in Nature in 1961. However, the essential elements of the theory were published 9 years earlier by Davies and Krebs. Why, then, was this earlier formulation overlooked? The success of Mitchell's theory is examined in comparison with those of Davies and Krebs and of Williams.     

Gastrointestinal stem cells. III. Emergent themes of liver stem cell biology: niche, quiescence, self-renewal, and plasticity

This essay will address areas of liver stem/progenitor cell studies in which consensus has emerged and in which controversy still prevails over consensus, but it will also highlight important themes that inevitably should be a focus of liver stem/progenitor cell investigations in coming years. Thus concepts regarding cell plasticity, the existence of a physiological/anatomic stem cell niche, and whether intrahepatic liver stem/progenitor cells comprise true stem cells or progenitor cells (or both) will be approached in some detail.