Writing today in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a University of Wisconsin-Madison bacteriologist reveals that mispaired nucleotides in transfer RNA actually make the molecule more adroit, enhancing its ability to build proteins.

Scientists have obtained a detailed map of one of biology’s most important light detectors, a protein found in many species across life’s plant, fungal, and bacterial kingdoms.

Undergrads in scientific disciplines often it challenging to study abroad because of their rigorous academic schedules. A unique international program run by the UW-Madison’s bacteriology department offers a partial solution to this problem.

Graduate students spend years pursuing advanced degrees, and many follow up their Ph. D.s with post-doctoral fellowships. But after that, there’s a world of career opportunities available beyond academia–which is something that not all graduate students understand.

A newly discovered pathway by which cells protect themselves from a toxic byproduct of photosynthesis may hold important implications for bioenergy sources, human and plant disease, and agricultural yields.

Scientific study sometimes focuses on one process at the expense of the larger, interconnected picture. One University of Wisconsin-Madison bacteriologist recognizes this trend, and tries to take a step back in her own research; she works to understand not just how biochemical processes work, but how they affect one another.

A National Institutes of Health grant–the largest of its kind in the country–that promotes graduate training in biotechnology has been renewed for an additional five years.

Ants that tend and harvest gardens of fungus have been closely studied for dozens of years, and are often cited as a model system for symbiosis. However, two other key players-an antibiotic-producing bacteria and a garden parasite, which have likely been co-evolving with the ants and the fungus for tens of millions of years-have been identified in recent years.

A three-year, $3.7 million grant from the Department of Energy will fund a major computational biology center with the goal of advancing knowledge of how […]

A University of Wisconsin-Madison bacteriology professor has created a web-based textbook from 30 years’ worth of lecture notes, making a wealth of information — written in an easy-to-understand style — about everything from anthrax to whooping cough available for students, teachers, scientists and information seekers from around the world.