Cells are the basic building blocks of life—the smallest units that can do all the jobs a living thing needs. Most cells fit into two groups: prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The most significant ...

An international team of researchers has created the most detailed model yet of how cells regulate traffic through the nuclear pore complex—the gateway between a cell’s nucleus and its cytoplasm. The ...

Researchers from UC San Francisco and Cedars-Sinai have developed a new way to prompt stem cells to form specific organs. It sets the stage for growing human organs from scratch – a long-time goal of ...

Allan Albig receives funding from the National Institute of Health. Think back to that basic biology class you took in high school. You probably learned about organelles, those little “organs” inside ...

All modern multicellular life — all life that any of us regularly see — is made of cells with a knack for compartmentalization. Recent discoveries are revealing how the first eukaryote got its start.

In living cells, regulation of the electrochemical environment is supposed to be managed by ion channels—protein complexes that reside in cell membranes and assume definite shapes. So, it’s surprising ...

A bizarre bacteria has been discovered with an ability previously thought impossible for its kind. This strange discovery could shine a light on how some of our earliest single-celled ancestors formed ...

Prokaryotes are ancient, simple forms of life that include bacteria and archaea. These cellular life forms lack membrane-bound organelles. Those organelles, which include the nucleus and the ...

Researchers stumbled upon an ingredient that can stabilize droplets of genetic material: water. By Carl Zimmer Rain may have been an essential ingredient for the origin of life, according to a study ...