Rapid deployment of inexpensive open-source orbital shakers in support of high-throughput screening.

Open-source projects continue to grow in popularity alongside open-source educational resources, software, and hardware tools. The impact of this increased availability of open-source technologies is that end users are empowered to have greater control over the tools that they work with. This trend extends in the life science laboratory space, where new open-source projects are routinely being published that allow users to build and modify scientific equipment specifically tailored to their needs, often at a reduced cost from equivalent commercial offerings.

Lopinavir/Ritonavir Impairs Physical Strength in Association with Reduced Igf1 Expression in Skeletal Muscle of Older Mice.

Background: Late-middle age HIV patients are prone to fatigue despite effective viral control by antiretroviral therapies. Rodent models to recapitulate this phenotype are still not available.

Hypothesis: Drug treatment may compromise muscle strength and physical performance more in older individuals with pre-existing metabolic disorders than normal young ones.

A mycobacterial enzyme essential for cell division synergizes with resuscitation-promoting factor.

The final stage of bacterial cell division requires the activity of one or more enzymes capable of degrading the layers of peptidoglycan connecting two recently developed daughter cells. Although this is a key step in cell division and is required by all peptidoglycan-containing bacteria, little is known about how these potentially lethal enzymes are regulated. It is likely that regulation is mediated, at least partly, through protein-protein interactions.

A partner for the resuscitation-promoting factors of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Many cases of active tuberculosis are thought to result from the reactivation of dormant Mycobacterium tuberculosis from a prior infection, yet remarkably little is known about the mechanism by which these non-sporulating bacteria reactivate. A family of extracellular bacterial proteins, known as resuscitation-promoting factors (Rpfs), has previously been shown to stimulate growth of dormant mycobacteria. While Rpf proteins are clearly peptidoglycan glycosidases, the mechanism and role of Rpf in mediating reactivation remains unclear.