Life and health

Channel-targeting spider neurotoxins

Channel-targeting spider neurotoxins are disulfide-rich venom peptides, mostly with an inhibitor cystine-knot fold, that bind sodium, calcium, and potassium ion channels and change how they open or close.

Channichthyidae

Channichthyidae, crocodile icefishes or white-blooded fishes, are Southern Ocean notothenioid fish and the only vertebrates lacking hemoglobin; 16–25 species, origin within 5 million years, some also lacking cardiac myoglobin.

Sep 20, 2026

Channing J. Der

Channing J. Der is an American cancer cell biologist and pharmacologist at UNC-Chapel Hill who took part in the 1982 discovery of mutated RAS genes in human cancers.

Chantal Mathieu

Chantal Mathieu is a Belgian endocrinologist at KU Leuven who studies the prevention of type 1 diabetes and served as EASD president from 2022 to 2025.

Chanterelle

Chanterelles (Cantharellus, Craterellus) are edible ectomycorrhizal wild mushrooms with blunt false gills, funnel-shaped caps, and apricot aroma; not cultivated commercially, harvested from forests, with toxic look-alikes like jack-o'-lantern.

Oct 15, 2026

Chaoborus

Chaoborus is a genus of non-biting midges whose transparent, neutrally buoyant larvae, known as phantom midges or glassworms, are planktonic predators of freshwater lakes and ponds.

Chaozhong Zhang

Chaozhong Zhang is a Chinese-trained wheat molecular geneticist in Jorge Dubcovsky's laboratory at the University of California, Davis, known for cloning the stripe rust resistance gene Yr28.

Chapare hemorrhagic fever

Chapare hemorrhagic fever (CHHF), caused by Chapare virus (CHAPV), a New World Clade B arenavirus, is a rare rodent-borne viral hemorrhagic fever known only from Bolivia, with about 60% case fatality, no specific treatment, and five documented outbreaks since 2003.

Chaparral

Chaparral: California's Mediterranean-climate evergreen sclerophyll shrubland, about 10 million acres, dominated by chamise, manzanita, ceanothus; historical fire-return intervals 30-90 years; threatened by drought and short-interval fire type conversion.

Chaperone (protein)

Chaperone (protein): molecular chaperones, or heat-shock proteins (Hsp60, Hsp70, Hsp90, Hsp100, small HSPs), are proteins that bind non-native proteins, prevent aggregation, and use ATP to assist folding, unfolding, and disaggregation.

Chaperone protein gp12

gp12, gene product 12; in lactococcal phage p2 (ORF12) a tape measure protein chaperone; unrelated same-numbered proteins in T4, Sf6, C1, φ29, and SPP1 phages.

Chaperonin

Chaperonin: ATP-driven double-ring protein-folding machine found in all domains of life. Group I (GroEL/GroES, bacteria and organelles) uses a detachable lid; Group II (thermosome, CCT/TRiC) has built-in protrusions and folds actin, tubulin, and about 10% of the eukaryotic proteome.

Chapman's Pool

Chapman's Pool, Dorset: Kimmeridgian Kimmeridge Clay embayment near Worth Matravers on the Jurassic Coast, the only complete British Rotunda–Fittoni zone succession, famous for Pavlovia ammonites and reptile remains; SSSI, Smedmore Estate.

Char kway teow

Char kway teow (炒粿条) is a stir-fried flat rice noodle street dish of Singapore and Malaysia, especially Penang, made with cockles, prawns, egg, and lard, flavored by dark soy sauce and wok hei.

Char magaz

Char magaz (चार मगज) is a blend of watermelon, melon, cucumber, and pumpkin seed kernels used in Indian and Pakistani cuisines, especially Rajasthani and Mughlai gravies like korma.

Char syndrome

Char syndrome (OMIM 169100) is a rare autosomal dominant disorder from TFAP2B variants, marked by patent ductus arteriosus, distinctive facial dysmorphism, and fifth-finger middle phalanx aplasia or hypoplasia.

Chara (alga)

Chara (muskgrass, stonewort) is a genus of branched green macroalgae in Characeae, with calcium carbonate-encrusted gritty branches and a musky odor. It indicates oligotrophic hardwater quality, feeds waterfowl, and belongs to the Charales once deemed land plants' closest algal relatives.

Characidae

Characidae, the tetras, are Neotropical freshwater fishes of Characiformes; formerly over 1250 species in 141 genera, split in 2024 into Spintherobolidae, Stevardiidae, Characidae, and Acestrorhamphidae based on UCE phylogenomics.

Characiformes

Characiformes is an order of primarily freshwater ray-finned fishes that includes piranhas, tetras, and hatchetfishes, with over 1,600 species in 18 families living mainly in African and Neotropical rivers.

Charadriiformes

Charadriiformes (shorebirds, gulls, terns, skuas, auks) is a monophyletic bird order with three suborders, Lari, Scolopaci, and Charadrii, about 392 species in 19 families, a debated Cretaceous-to-Paleocene origin, and many declining migratory species.

Charadrius

Charadrius, the ringed plovers (Linnaeus 1758), a genus of Charadriidae shorebirds breeding on all continents except Antarctica; phylogenomics has split many species into Anarhynchus and other genera, leaving 23 under IOC v14.1.

Charalambos Antoniades

Charalambos Antoniades is a Greek-born cardiologist and British Heart Foundation Chair at Oxford, known for pioneering AI in CT angiography to detect coronary inflammation and predict heart attacks.

Charalambos P. Kyriacou

Charalambos P. Kyriacou, known as Bambos Kyriacou, is a British behavioral geneticist and chronobiologist at Leicester who studies circadian rhythms in the fruit fly Drosophila.

Charalampos G. Kalodimos

Charalampos "Babis" Kalodimos is a structural biologist who uses NMR spectroscopy to study protein dynamics, and has chaired structural biology at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital since 2017.

Charan Ranganath

Charan Ranganath is a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Davis, known for research on episodic memory and the 2024 bestseller Why We Remember.

Charas

Charas, also known as gardaa, is the resin of the cannabis plant, collected as it exudes naturally and historically produced, sold, and taxed across northern South Asia.

Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 1A

Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 1A (CMT1A), the most common CMT subtype, is an inherited demyelinating neuropathy caused by a 1.4-Mb PMP22 duplication on chromosome 17p12, causing progressive distal weakness, with PXT3003 the leading trial therapy.

Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 1B

Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 1B (CMT1B, HMSN IB) is an autosomal dominant demyelinating neuropathy caused by MPZ gene mutations at 1q22, with early infantile severe or late adult onset phenotypes.

Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 1C

CMT1C (OMIM 601098) is a rare autosomal dominant demyelinating Charcot-Marie-Tooth neuropathy caused by LITAF/SIMPLE missense mutations on 16p13, clinically resembling mild CMT1A with conduction velocities around 20-25 m/s.