Tweaking a specific cell type’s ability to absorb potassium in the brain improved walking and prolonged survival in a mouse model of Huntington’s disease, reports a UCLA study in Nature Neuroscience. The discovery could point to new drug targets for treating the devastating disease, which strikes one in every 20,000 Americans.
Scientists at the Center for Nanotechnology and Nanotoxicology at Harvard School of Public Health have discovered a way to measure the effective density of engineered nanoparticles in physiological fluids, making it possible to determine the amount of nanomaterials that come into contact with cells and tissue in culture.
Narine Sarvazyan, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and physiology at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, has invented a new organ to help return blood flow from veins lacking functional valves.
As stem cells continue their gradual transition from the lab to the clinic, a research group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has discovered a new way to make large concentrations of skeletal muscle cells and muscle progenitors from human stem cells.
A new kind of single-dose vaccine that comes in a nasal spray and doesn’t require refrigeration could dramatically alter the public health landscape — get more people vaccinated around the world and address the looming threats of emerging and re-emerging diseases. Researchers presented the latest design and testing of these “nanovaccines” at the 247th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society.
Animal fat from chicken, pork, beef and even alligators could give an economical, ecofriendly boost to the biofuel industry, according to researchers who reported a new method for biofuel production here today. The report, following up on their earlier study on the potential use of gator fat as a source of biodiesel fuel, was part of the 247th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.
While the world’s best athletes competed during last month’s winter Olympics, doctors and scientists were waging a different battle behind the scenes to make sure no one had an unfair advantage from banned performance-enhancing drugs. Here today at the 247th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, researchers unveiled a new weapon — a test for doping compounds that is a thousand times more sensitive than those used today.
When cancer spreads, it becomes even more deadly. It moves with stealth and can go undetected for months or years. But a new technology that uses “nano-flares” has the potential to catch these tumor cells early. Today, at the 247th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, scientists presented the latest advances in nano-flare technology as it applies to the detection of metastatic breast cancer cells.
Using tiny particles designed to target cancer-fighting immune cells, Johns Hopkins researchers have trained the immune systems of mice to fight melanoma, a deadly skin cancer. The experiments represent a significant step toward using nanoparticles and magnetism to treat a variety of conditions, the researchers say.
Researchers at Cedars-Sinai have developed a unique, compact, relatively inexpensive imaging device to “light up” malignant brain tumors and other cancers. The experimental system consists of a special camera designed and developed at Cedars-Sinai and a new, targeted imaging agent based on a synthetic version of a small protein – a peptide – found in the venom of the deathstalker scorpion.
Engineered tissues like the ones used to create artificial skin need a scaffold for cells to grow on. Now a team led by Michigan Technological University’s Feng Zhao has coaxed cells called fibroblasts into creating a scaffold that mimics the body’s own internal matrix, and in early tests, cells seem happy to set up residence.
A team of bioinformaticians from Harvard University and the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute of Virginia Tech has presented new methods to integrate data from different sequencing platforms, thus producing a reliable set of genotypes that will serve as a benchmark for human genome sequencing.
The Immune Tolerance Network’s (ITN) HALT-MS study, 24 patients with relapsing, remitting multiple sclerosis received high-dose immunosuppression followed by a transplant of their own stem cells. Data published today quantified and characterized T cell populations following this aggressive regimen.
By sandwiching a biological molecule between sheets of graphene, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have obtained atomic-level images of the molecule in its natural watery environment.
An ingenious new technique may open up new vistas for scientists seeking to understand health and disease at the most fundamental level.
Genetically modified (GM) crops and foods and ingredients made available with the techniques of modern biotechnology have recently been dominating food and agriculture news coverage in the United States. Food Technology magazine contributing editors Bruce Chassy, PhD, University of Illinois and Wayne Parrott, PhD, University of Georgia, and John Ruff, CFS, past IFT president dispel myths and clarify common consumer questions when it comes to GMOs.
For plants, the only way to grow is for cells to expand. Unlike animals, cell division in plants happens only within a tiny region of the root and stem apex, making cell expansion the critical path to increased stature. Now, a team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison reports the discovery of a hormone and receptor that control cell expansion in plants.
University of Utah bioengineers showed that tiny blood vessels grow better in the laboratory if the tissue surrounding them is less dense. Then the researchers created a computer simulation to predict such growth accurately – an early step toward treatments to provide blood supply to tissues damaged by diabetes and heart attacks and to skin grafts and implanted ligaments and tendons.
Researchers at the University of Delaware have developed a “smart” hydrogel that can deliver medicine on demand, in response to mechanical force, in laboratory studies. Such gels hold promise in helping people with wear-and-tear injuries including osteoarthritis, torn ligaments and others.
A team including researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered that a specific gene may play a major role in the development of a life-threatening birth defect called congenital diaphragmatic hernia, or CDH, which affects approximately one out of every 3,000 live births.
With the help of biomimetic matrices, a research team led by bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego has discovered exactly how calcium phosphate can coax stem cells to become bone-building cells. This work is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of Jan. 6, 2014.
A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have discovered that outer skin cells are able to unite to form suspended “bridges” during wound healing. The new findings will pave the way for tissue engineering, such as the design of artificial skin, and better wound treatment.
For the first time, scientists have succeeded in transforming human stem cells into functional lung and airway cells. The advance, reported by Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers, has significant potential for modeling lung disease, screening drugs, studying human lung development, and, ultimately, generating lung tissue for transplantation. The study was published today in the journal Nature Biotechnology.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers and co-authors from four other U.S. institutions from the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network are repurposing genetic data and electronic medical records to perform the first large-scale phenome-wide association study (PheWAS), released today in Nature Biotechnology.
Researchers led by bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego have generated the most complete genome sequences from single E. coli cells and individual neurons from the human brain. The breakthrough comes from a new single-cell genome sequencing technique that confines genome amplification to fluid-filled wells with a volume of just 12 nanoliters.
Tricking algae’s biological clock to remain in its daytime setting can dramatically boost the amount of commercially valuable compounds that these simple marine plants can produce when they are grown in constant light.
Researchers at the University of Iowa have created an implantable bio patch that regrows bone in a living body, using existing cells. The team created a scaffold seeded with plasmids containing the genetic information for producing bone. The plasmids are absorbed by bone cells already in the body, spurring new growth. Potential applications extend to dentistry. Results appear in the journal Biomaterials.
A new technique successfully takes on a longstanding challenge in DNA sequencing – determining whether a particular genetic sequence comes from an individual's mother or father. The method, described in a Ludwig Cancer Research study in Nature Biotechnology, promises to accelerate studies of how genes contribute to disease, improve the process of matching donors with organs and help scientists better understand human migration patterns.
New discoveries, presented at the AVS Meeting in Long Beach, Calif., could impact applications ranging from artificial snowmaking to global climate models.
Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) have devised a hair restoration method that can generate new human hair growth, rather than simply redistribute hair from one part of the scalp to another. The approach could significantly expand the use of hair transplantation to women with hair loss, who tend to have insufficient donor hair, as well as to men in early stages of baldness. The study was published today in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Jellyfish are one of the most energetically efficient natural propulsors on the planet, according to Shashank Priya, professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech. He led a study highlighting the motion of the jellyfish. The work appeared in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Researchers have developed a new technology to sort human cells according to their stiffness, which might one day help doctors identify certain diseases in patients, according to a new study.
Researchers have successfully tested treatments for people with allergies to grasses and to dust mites. The treatments are from a new class of therapy, known as ‘synthetic peptide immuno-regulatory epitopes’, or SPIREs. Positive results, first with a cat allergy therapy and now with house dust mite and grass allergy treatments, suggest that this approach may be used for many common allergies.
Spit conjures a variety of sayings and images for most people, but for Granger and colleagues spit is also serious business. In a recent study, scientists with Arizona State University and the University of Oregon tracked the release of nerve growth factor in saliva (sNGF), finding for the first time that this protein typically linked to the survival, development or function of neurons may be an important player in understanding the body’s response to stress.
Pinning down an effective way to combat the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus, the viral precursor to AIDS, has long been challenge task for scientists and physicians, because the virus is an elusive one that mutates frequently and, as a result, quickly becomes immune to medication. A team of Drexel University researchers is trying to get one step ahead of the virus with a microbicide they’ve created that can trick HIV into “popping” itself into oblivion.
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found a way to apply a powerful new DNA-editing technology more broadly than ever before. “This is one of the hottest tools in biology, and we’ve now found a way to target it to any DNA sequence,” said Carlos F. Barbas III, the Janet and Keith Kellogg II Chair in Molecular Biology and Professor in the Department of Chemistry at TSRI.
A new technology is showing promise as the basis for a home test to diagnose influenza quickly, before the window for taking antiviral drugs slams shut and sick people spread the virus to others, scientists reported here today. In a presentation at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, they described how it also would determine the specific strain of flu virus, helping in selection of the most effective drug.
The citrus flavor and aroma of grapefruit — already used in fruit juices, citrus-flavored beverages, and prestige perfumes and colognes — may be heading for a new use in battling mosquitoes, ticks, head lice and bedbugs thanks to a less expensive way of making large amounts of the once rare and pricey ingredient, a scientist said here today at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.
Disease-causing bacteria stink — literally — and the odor released by some of the nastiest microbes has become the basis for a faster and simpler new way to diagnose serious blood infections and finger the specific microbe, scientists reported today at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.
The vision for a new branch of medicine, inspired by the ancient field that began with peg legs and hand hooks, commanded the spotlight in a major address by its pioneer here today at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society. He focused on the field he has named “molecular prosthetics.”
In an advance in determining the role of environmental agents in causing cancer, scientists described discovery of a long-sought way to use biopsy samples from cancer patients to check on human exposure to substances that damage the genetic material DNA in ways that can cause cancer. Their report on the method, which taps into a treasure trove of information left by biopsy patients, was part of the 246th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society.
Many researchers believe when the microbiome is unbalanced, it predisposes us to numerous autoimmune diseases. Chief Medical Officer of Coronado Biosciences, Karin Hehenberger, believes the theory about microbiota is related to the “hygiene hypothesis”—the notion that there is a direct link between elevated rates of autoimmune diseases and Western society’s obsession to establish germ-free environments. One approach comes in the form of a treatment involving Trichuris suis ova (TSO)—pig whipworm eggs.
Biotechnology has held out the promise of genetically engineered seeds that provide bountiful crops while keeping the weeds at bay. However, using these seeds raises many ecological, ethical, political, issues.
A collaboration of scientists at Sanford-Burnham and the University of California, Santa Barbara, finds that rod-shaped particles, rather than spherical particles, appear more effective at adhering to cells where they’re needed.
New technology under development at The Ohio State University is paving the way for low-cost electronic devices that work in direct contact with living tissue inside the body. The first planned use of the technology is a sensor that will detect the very early stages of organ transplant rejection.
In the gonads of animals, genome parasites such as transposons pose a serious threat to evolutionary fitness. With their ability to bounce around in the genome, they often cause dangerous mutations. To protect genomic integrity, animals evolved a sophisticated mechanism – the so called piRNA pathway – to silence the deleterious transposons. Not much is known about the molecular processes and the involved factors that constitute the piRNA pathway. Researchers at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (IMBA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) in Vienna have now identified ~50 genes, that play important roles in the piRNA pathway of the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster.
A simpler and faster way of producing designer bacteria used in biotechnology processes has been developed by University of Adelaide researchers.
Researchers at Columbia University and Stanford University have developed a computational method that enables scientists to visualize and interpret “high-dimensional” data produced by single-cell measurement technologies such as mass cytometry. The method, published today in the online edition of Nature Biotechnology, has particular relevance to cancer research and therapeutics.
Experiments at Johns Hopkins have unearthed clues about which protein signaling molecules are allowed into hollow, hair-like “antennae,” called cilia, that alert cells to critical changes in their environments.
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and University of Washington scientists have identified a class of immune cells that reside long-term in the genital skin and mucosa and are believed to be responsible for suppressing recurring outbreaks of genital herpes. These immune cells also play a role in suppressing symptoms of genital herpes, which is why most sufferers of the disease are asymptomatic when viral reactivations occur. The discovery of this subtype of immune cells, called CD8αα+ T cells, opens a new avenue of research to develop a vaccine to prevent and treat herpes simplex virus type 2, or HSV-2. Identifying these T cells’ specific molecular targets, called epitopes, is the next step in developing a vaccine.
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