agricultural communications

(Texas A&M University - Agricultural Communications) Dr. Jim Sacchettini does "virtual drug screening" to develop medicines for infectious diseases through a process he and a colleague developed to use Texas A&M University computers in off hours while they are not being used by students.

With some 2 million molecules to screen, that process might have taken 40 years to complete by old methods, Sacchettini said.

But it takes his lab just two weeks to process.

(Texas A&M University - Agricultural Communications) Well beyond the advice to drink enough H2O and not eat too much NaCl, the nation's chemists will get elemental with grapefruit, onions, peppers, tomatoes, carrots and watermelons this week at the American Chemical Society meeting.The world's largest scientific society is observing the 100th anniversary of its agricultural and food chemistry division with a series of talks aimed at new discoveries in the health benefits from phytochemicals in fruits and vegetables.

(Texas A&M University - Agricultural Communications) Mitochondria, the fuel of a cell, has been found to be the "driver" for cell division,according to Texas AgriLife Research biochemists.

This discovery could play a big role in finding cures for many human diseases, they say. The biochemists studied yeast cells and found that mitochondria, which generates 90 percent of the cell's energy, can be the deciding factor -- the "brain power" -- behind how fast cells divide.