Heat shock system helps bug come back to life after drying up

(Kazan Federal University) Researchers from an international collaboration including Oleg Gusev of the RIKEN Innovation Center and collaborators from NARO, Kazan Federal University (Russia) and Skoltech University (Russia) have discovered that a gene called heat shock factor -- which is present in some form in nearly all living organisms on earth -- has been coopted by the species to survive desiccation.