His own work involves such things as understanding the makeup and behavior of less-understood critical components of cells, like lipids and glycols, and how a cancer cell might bind with a nanoparticle.

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Bacterial proteins, too, can be identified and analysed in infected tissue by combining new techniques for the production of antibodies with the expanding science of immunocytochemistry (which looks at the reactions to those antibodies of individual components of cells).

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However, closer examination revealed differences between men and women in two key components of the immune system - T-cells, which protect the body from infection, and B-cells, which secrete antibodies.

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"These results open the potential for visibly transparent polymer solar cells as add-on components of portable electronics, smart windows and building-integrated photovoltaics and in other applications, " said study leader Yang Yang, a UCLA professor of materials science and engineering, who also is director of the Nano Renewable Energy Center at California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI).

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Instead of being fixed, a string of bits specifies the chip's design by telling it what linkages to forge between its various components (in this case, groups of transistors known as logic cells).

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Beyond more-efficient solar cells, they're working to slash the cost of components elsewhere in the solar-module system.

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E5, and it combines a microprocessor with 3, 200 reconfigurable logic cells, a chunk of memory, and a number of other components.

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This new breakthrough -- when combined with the DNA-based data storage and a method to transmit DNA between cells the school's already working on -- means that Stanford has created all the necessary components of a biologic computer.

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