Creating and sculpting cells and organs that develop in the embryo requires the construction signals to be delivered at the right place and the right time. It was long presumed that the main cues come from molecular signals produced and sent out from distant and specialised glands, but as it turns out, this process also…

For the nervous system to receive information from the body and send out instructions, it must rely on finding a way of passing its electrical impulses from one nerve cell to another. By revealing the mode through which impulses communicate their signal across the miniscule gaps, or synapses, that separate nerve cells from each other…

At any given time, our nervous system faces an enormous signal control task. Acting as the command centre for the entire body, it is charged with generating and processing the host of different messages sent through nerve cells that allow us to move, think and respond to any given stimulus. Managing this constant and complex…

When engaging an enemy in battle, it’s always an advantage to enlist some help, and in the case of the immune system this is no exception. To aid their vital task of specifically binding to and destroying invading bacteria and viruses, antibodies recruit a special type of protein to deliver a lethal blow. The identity…

Our immune system does a remarkable job of protecting us against the harmful effects of infectious agents that cause disease. However, every so often this defence mechanism can be made to turn on itself, triggering a violent, often fatal reaction against its host. Understanding how the immune system can be prompted to behave in such…

The 1906 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramón y Cajal for revealing the inner beauty of the nervous system. By developing methods that could colour and highlight its key components, Golgi and Cajal allowed the anatomy of the nervous system to be observed and documented in precise…

by Gunnar Grant This article was published on 12 September 1999. was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine as early as 1901, when the first prize was awarded. After that, his name came up every year until 1906, when he was finally awarded the prize together with . There were four proponents…

The first Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine acknowledged both the development of a scientific concept that concerned the way in which the immune system can fight certain infectious agents, and its successful translation into a method of keeping the illnesses they cause at bay. At the forefront of these achievements was Emil von Behring.…

1. Early life and influences I was born in 1945 in Fukuoka, half a year before the end of the World War II, to my father Yoshio and mother Shina. My father was employed at Kyushu University as a professor of mining engineering. At that time, everyone in Japan was equally poor, and even food…

Links to other sites