Spectrum Pharmaceuticals (NasdaqGM:SPPI), a commercial-stage biotechnology company with a focus in oncology, announced that it has received a Complete Response letter from the U.S.

It has long been a mystery how the developing embryo designates those rare, precious cells destined to produce sperm and eggs — enabling us to have offspring - since these primordial germ cells’ existence is fleeting and hard to spot with the tools of biology.

Catalysts assist in chemical reactions without undergoing any alteration of their own. In the cells of living organisms, proteins perform this important function. They carry out the metabolism fundamental to all living processes. Proteins are instrumental in cellular respiration, they for instance reduce oxygen to water and oxidize food into carbon dioxide.

New research, conducted by Charles Wingo and his colleagues, at the University of Florida, Gainsville, suggests a link between the circadian rhythm and control of sodium (salt) levels in mice. The hormone aldosterone regulates levels of sodium in the blood and thereby helps control blood pressure.

Microbial populations have traditionally been studied in carefully controlled, laboratory-grown cultures. New metagenomic approaches are being developed to study these organisms in environmental or medical samples.

Transcriptomic tests have uncovered the protein composition of venom from the Scorpiops jendeki scorpion. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Genomics have carried out the first ever venom analysis in this arachnid, and discovered nine novel poison molecules, never before seen in any scorpion species.

Potential new drugs: 970 million and still counting Like astronomers counting stars in the familiar universe of outer space, chemists in Switzerland are reporting the latest results of a survey of chemical space - the so-called chemical universe where tomorrow’s miracle drugs may reside.

An unusual and touchingly domestic glimpse into the life of the world’s most famous naturalist, Charles Darwin, will be made public at the Royal Society’s Summer Science Exhibition, starting on Tuesday (30th June).

Using a “neurologger” specially designed to record the brain activity of pigeons in flight, researchers reporting online on June 25th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, have gained new insight into what goes through the birds’ minds as they fly over familiar terrain.

In the bustling economy of the cell, little bubbles called vesicles serve as container ships, ferrying cargo to and from the port - the cell membrane. Some of these vesicles, called post-Golgi vesicles, export cargo made by the cell’s protein factory.