Feature Channels: Biotech

• share
• favorite_border

In new work by Berkeley Lab and our collaborators, scientists discover how a protein made by bullfrogs inhibits the deadly neurotoxin involved in red tide events, perform the first observation of how atoms arrange in four dimensions during phase transitions, and describe a new bacterial gene that could be engineered into biofuel-producing bacteria to significantly boost efficiency.

• share
• favorite_border

Two new roof-mounted solar photovoltaic installations on buildings located on the Medford/Somerville campus of Tufts University will generate 161,000 kilowatt hours of renewable energy for the university and surrounding community and are expected to save the university approximately $187,000 over the next 20 years.

• share
• favorite_border

A group of UCSD researchers set out to gain a better understanding of the thermal balance of power plants and surfaces, but they quickly realized that they would first need to determine what roles cloud cover and relative humidity play in the transparency of the atmosphere to radiation at temperatures common on Earth. In the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, the group presents detailed radiative cooling resource maps they created to help determine the best climates for large-scale deployment of passive cooling technologies.

• share
• favorite_border

Zillionaires like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos who see the 'colonisation' of space as an answer to the Earth's ever threatened resources will be reassured to learn that human sperm retains its complete viability within the different gravitational conditions found in outer space.

• share
• favorite_border

Drones and crawling robots outfitted with special scanning technology could help wind blades stay in service longer, which may help lower the cost of wind energy at a time when blades are getting bigger, pricier and harder to transport, Sandia National Laboratories researchers say. As part of the Department of Energy’s Blade Reliability Collaborative work, funded by the Wind Energy Technologies Office, Sandia researchers partnered with energy businesses to develop machines that noninvasively inspect wind blades for hidden damage while being faster and more detailed than traditional inspections with cameras.

• share
• favorite_border

Long ago, during the European Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci wrote that we humans “know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.” Five hundred years and innumerable technological and scientific advances later, his sentiment still holds true. But that could soon change. A new study in Nature Communications details how an improved method for studying microbes in the soil will help scientists understand both fine-grained details and large-scale cycles of the environment.

• share
• favorite_border

A new biosynthetic production pathway developed by scientists at the Joint BioEnergy Institute could provide a sustainable alternative to conventional synthetic blue dye. The highly efficient fungi-based platform may also open the door for producing many other valuable biological compounds that are currently very hard to manufacture.

• share
• favorite_border

Sandia National Laboratories and partners developed new software that can perform quasi-static time series analysis 1,000 times faster than previous tools to show how rooftop solar panels interact with the electrical grid throughout the year.

• share
• favorite_border

Bad news, Jurassic Park fans--the odds of scientists cloning a dinosaur from ancient DNA are pretty much zero.

• share
• favorite_border

A team of scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has been working for nearly a decade to uncover new strategies to control the environmentally harmful side effects of modern day farming, including the release of excess nutrients from fertilizers that can pollute local and regional waterways.

• share
• favorite_border

From Berkeley Lab: groundbreaking study maps out paths to new nitride materials; new framework for artificial photosynthesis; TMDCs don’t have to be perfect to shine bright.

• share
• favorite_border

At first glance, nuclear waste and metal hip implants seem completely unrelated. But the answers to why medical implants fail and what we can do about it may come from an unlikely source — the nuclear fuel cycle. Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have discovered that the same factors link the corrosion of nuclear waste forms — the packages scientists build to secure waste for millions of years — to corrosive conditions within the body that may cause implant failure. 

• share
• favorite_border

The researchers say the new sensors could help detect spoilage and reduce food waste for supermarkets and consumers.

• share
• favorite_border

An international research collaboration that includes the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) has discovered that aging in nematodes (worms) can be slowed and even reversed by a number of Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved drugs, findings that have the potential to extend human lifespan. The study findings are published in Scientific Reports.

• share
• favorite_border

James Wilson, MD, PhD, director of Penn’s Gene Therapy Program and Orphan Disease Center, and a professor of Medicine and Pediatrics in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, recalls being struck by the devastating toll of rare diseases as a young physician in the 1980s. He set out on a path to correct the genes that cause these conditions, including spinal muscle atrophy (SMA), the most common inherited fatal disease in infants. Today, Wilson and his team are celebrating a major milestone in the field: approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of a gene therapy known as Zolgensma for SMA. The therapy is based on a delivery vehicle that his team discovered and developed over the past decade as part of a wide-ranging portfolio of research to advance gene therapy.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry have predicted fascinating new properties of lithium; a powerful combination of experiment and theory has revealed atomic-level details about how silver helps transform carbon dioxide gas into a reusable form; new study reports the first comprehensive

• share
• favorite_border

A new genomic approach provides a glimpse into the diverse bacterial ecosystem on the International Space Station.

• share
• favorite_border

New drug also may increase effectiveness of oral chemotherapy for these tumors, known for their resistance to treatment.

• share
• favorite_border

The College of American Pathologists (CAP) introduces a streamlined testing strategy, using an algorithm to improve diagnosis of celiac disease, helping millions of Americans

• share
• favorite_border

Together with the United States Food and Drug Administration and the BioCompute Partnership, the George Washington University is co-sponsoring a workshop, titled “BioCompute Objects: Tools for Communicating Next Generation Sequencing Data and Analysis.”

• share
• favorite_border

Tiny light-emitting microalgae, found in the ocean, could hold the secret to the next generation of organic solar cells, according to new research carried out at the Universities of Birmingham and Utrecht.

• share
• favorite_border

Rutgers researchers have identified a siesta-suppressing gene in fruit flies, which sheds light on the biology that helps many creatures, including humans, balance the benefits of a good nap against those of getting important activities done during the day.

• share
• favorite_border

Understanding how the brain reacts to acceleration is essential to designing more effective protective equipment and strategies for preventing traumatic brain injury, or TBI.

• share
• favorite_border

NIBIB-funded researchers have designed a new class of two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials that are disc-shaped and flat on the surface, similar to a coin, to aid in treatments for cartilage repair.

• share
• favorite_border

Imagine a future technology that would provide instant access to the world's knowledge and artificial intelligence, simply by thinking about a specific topic or question. Communications, education, work, and the world as we know it would be transformed.

• share
• favorite_border

In a landmark study, a group of U.S. scientists from Johns Hopkins, Stanford University and other institutions has found no long-lasting, major differences between the epigenomes of astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent a year in space aboard the International Space Station, and his twin brother, Mark, who remained on Earth.

• share
• favorite_border

Electricity harvested from the sun or wind can be used interchangeably with power from coal or petroleum sources. Or sustainably produced electricity can be turned into something physical and useful. Researchers in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis have figured out how to feed electricity to microbes to grow truly green, biodegradable plastic, as reported in the Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology.

• share
• favorite_border

In a study of people with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and their twins and other close relatives, UC San Diego researchers were able to diagnose liver cirrhosis simply by analyzing a person’s stool microbes.

• share
• favorite_border

The University of Adelaide has reaffirmed its standing as the leading research and innovation university in South Australia.

• share
• favorite_border

From breakthroughs in regenerative medicine and medical imaging to advances in vaccine and drug development, Tulane University will showcase its latest research discoveries to biotechnology firms, venture capitalists, foundations and potential collaborators April 9-10 in New Orleans.

• share
• favorite_border

Sapio Sciences is pleased to announce the availability of Exemplar LIMS/ELN 11, a major expansion of our leading informatics platforms capabilities. Exemplar 11 focuses strongly on our drive to continuously improve user experience via interface enhancements. This release includes new data navigation aids, expanded searching capability, easier data viewing setup and new data and activity viewing components to enable quick and easy finding, viewing and traversing of your lab and scientific data.

• share
• favorite_border

Irvine, Calif., March 20, 2019 – Here’s something to chew on: One in four people are impacted by defects of the temporomandibular – or jaw – joint. Despite the pervasiveness of this affliction, treatments are lacking, and many sufferers resort to palliative measures to cope with the pain and debilitation it causes. “The TMJ is central to chewing, talking and so many other daily activities, so when this crucial joint is impaired, there are significant negative effects on quality of life,” said Kyriacos A.

• share
• favorite_border

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A fascination with movie technology that showed robots perform self-repair through a liquid formula inspired a Purdue University professor to make his own discoveries - which are now helping to lead the way for advancements in self-powering devices such as consumer electronics and defense innovations.

• share
• favorite_border

With a few genetic tweaks, a type of soil bacteria with an appetite for hydrocarbons shows promise as a biological factory for converting a renewable — but frustratingly untapped — bounty into a replacement for ubiquitous plastics.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists develop a molecular map of metabolic products of bacteria in root nodules to aid sustainable agriculture.

• share
• favorite_border

In the cells of every living organism — humans, birds, bees, roses and even bacteria — proteins vibrate with microscopic motions that help them perform vital tasks ranging from cell repair to photosynthesis. Now, scientists have developed a method for rapidly measuring proteins’ unique vibrations.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Indiana University have invented a new method to observe bacterial build cell walls in real time that could contribute to the search for new antibacterial drugs.

• share
• favorite_border

ReactWell has licensed a novel waste-to-fuel technology from Oak Ridge National Laboratory to improve energy conversion methods for cleaner, more efficient oil and gas, chemical and bioenergy production.

• share
• favorite_border

ASCB announces East and West Coast dates for summer biotech course, scholarships

• share
• favorite_border

Bioengineers are designing aortic heart valve replacements made of polymers rather than animal tissues. The goal is to optimize valve performance and enable increased use of a minimally-invasive method for valve replacement over the current practice of open heart surgery.

• share
• favorite_border

Los Alamos National Laboratory and partners are inviting the algae industry and academia to contribute to research to find the best algae strains for biofuels and bioproducts and to reduce the cost of producing bioenergy from algae feedstocks.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

If ship hulls were coated with special high-tech air trapping materials, up to one percent of global CO2 emissions could be avoided. This is the conclusion reached by scientists from the University of Bonn together with colleagues from St. Augustin and Rostock in a recent study. According to the study, ships could save up to 20 percent of fuel as a result of reduced drag. If so-called antifouling effects are also considered, such as the reduced growth of organisms on the hull, the reduction can even be doubled. The study has now been published in the journal Philosophical Transactions A.

• share
• favorite_border

Permanently arrested cell growth is known as "cellular senescence", and the accumulation of senescent cells may be one cause of aging in our bodies. Japanese researchers have discovered that a certain enzyme in our bodies promotes cellular senescence by producing reactive oxygen species. Drugs that target this enzyme could potentially suppress this process, and inhibit aging and aging-related illnesses.

• share
• favorite_border

This is the first visual function for incident AMD in older adults with normal macular health and early AMD. Older adults with delayed dark adaptation have a heightened risk for developing AMD within the next few years. Vision in bright light was known to be relatively preserved late into the disease. Night vision is affected much earlier.

• share
• favorite_border

Engineers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have created the first 3D-printed fluid circuit element so tiny that 10 could rest on the width of a human hair. The diode ensures fluids move in only a single direction--a critical feature for products like implantable devices that release therapies directly into the body.

• share
• favorite_border

How can you recycle the world's stockpiles of treated sewage sludge and boost sustainability in the construction industry, all at the same time? Turn those biosolids into bricks. Biosolids are a by-product of the wastewater treatment process that can be used as fertiliser, in land rehabilitation or as a construction material.

• share
• favorite_border

A simple blood test reliably detects signs of brain damage in people on the path to developing Alzheimer’s disease – even before they show signs of confusion and memory loss, according to a new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases.

• share
• favorite_border

Recap of program featuring biotech startups building platforms in the fight against the opioid crisis.

• share
• favorite_border

Dallas is well-known for its oil industry, corporate headquarters, and technology startups. But did you know that the science behind some of the best-selling prescription drugs of all time was developed here?