Newly developed ompounds aim to reveal the dual nature of formaldehyde, a chemical that is known to cause cancer but is also believed to play important roles in our biology. Compounds developed by ...

In the body, the small molecule formaldehyde (upper left in box) inhibits an enzyme (violet) that makes methyl groups (red) that are added to DNA. This interferes with methylation, an important ...

Formaldehyde, a toxin and carcinogen found in construction materials, carpets, car exhaust, cigarette smoke and even permanent press clothing, turns out to play an important role in the body — one ...

Formaldehyde's toxicity was presumed to derive from its ability to crosslink DNA, but that happens only at huge doses. Recent discoveries that formaldehyde is found in the body in small amounts led a ...