In the world of chemistry, the soccer-ball-shaped molecule called the buckyball is like a child prodigy yet to live up to early acclaim.

To make it smell "red," he mixed pure and synthetic vanillas, a warm molecule called heliotropin and the kerosene-vaporlike scent of benzyl acetate.

The valve uses a molecule called a rotaxane that can shuttle up and down along a molecular spine by means of a simple chemical reaction.

To safely convey drugs within the nerve, his group has designed a special molecule called an axonal transport facilitator that carries about 100 molecules of the drug being used.

Fortunately this undesirable enzymatic activity can be simply removed from the holoenzyme to leave a useful molecule called the Klenow fragment, widely used in molecular biology.

Polymerization is the process in which small molecules, called monomers, join chemically to produce a very large chain-like or network molecules, called a polymer.

Company officials said the patent is based on using a molecule called major histocompatibility complex, or M.H.C., that is found in white blood cells called macrophages.

A molecule called a substrate enters a metabolic pathway depending on the needs of the cell and the availability of the substrate.

The axon, or transmitting end, of one neuron releases molecules of neurotransmitter into a microscopic gap called the synapse.

A molecule recently synthesized in Yale University and University of Chile called Keep 32 is supposed to be able to kill Streptococcus mutans.