Feature Channels: Biotech

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Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have invented a new technique for constructing chiral drug molecules.

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The prospect of regenerating bone lost to cancer or trauma is a step closer to the clinic as University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists have identified two proteins found in bone marrow as key regulators of the master cells responsible for making new bone.

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Researchers are setting out to design and test troops of self-directed microscopic warriors that can locate and neutralize dangerous strains of bacteria.

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What do furniture makers, the auto industry and foresters all have in common? A need for innovation in Michigan forest biomaterials. The Michigan Forest Bioeconomy Conference, held Feb. 1 and 2 at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, explores opportunities in wood innovation, construction, and recycling.

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The Endocrine Society is pleased to announce the recipients of the Early Investigators Awards. The Early Investigators Awards were established to recognize the achievements of early career investigators in endocrine research. Winners are honored at the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting, the world’s premier event for presenting and obtaining the latest information in endocrine science and medicine.

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A team of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health has developed a new tool to monitor under a microscope how cells attach to an adjacent substrate. Studying adhesion events can help researchers understand how tissues grow, how diseases spread, and how stem cells differentiate into more specific cell types.

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Three nonprofits partner to create powerful database that will aim to improve immunotherapy for many types of cancer.

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. Jefferson researchers pieced together the three-dimensional atomic structure of a doughnut-shaped protein that acts like a door or ‘portal’ for the DNA to get in and out of the capsid, and have now discovered that this protein begins to transform its structure when it comes into contact with DNA.

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One of the most detailed genetic studies of any ecosystem to date has uncovered incredible biological diversity among subsurface bacteria. This research has nearly doubled the number of known bacterial groups.

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When the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense visited Kansas State University for a series of agrodefense discussions, the university cemented its status as a national leader in animal health, biosciences and food safety research.

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No single neuron produces a thought or a behavior; anything the brain accomplishes is a vast collaborative effort between cells. When at work, neurons talk rapidly to one another, forming networks as they communicate. Scientists at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna and the Rockefeller University in New York are developing technology that would make it possible to record brain activity as it plays out across these networks.

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Using a chemical "toolset" it developed, a Cornell group reports the ability to track a single protein's response to a chemical, which has implications in the emerging field of precision medicine.

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Researchers from Florida Atlantic University are collaborating with scientists from Sancilio and Company, Inc. to begin a new research project aimed at finding a treatment for patients afflicted by Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP). RP is an inherited disease that causes severe progressive vision impairment and blindness.

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Two Columbia Engineering professors were honored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Gerard Ateshian won the H.R. Lissner Medal for his work on developing better modalities for the treatment of osteoarthritis, including stronger engineered cartilage for resurfacing knee, hip, and shoulder joints. Kristin Myers won the Y.C. Fung Young Investigator Award for her work in maternal and fetal health, studying the mechanics of the uterus and cervix to understand how to prevent premature births.

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New images by Berkeley Lab scientists are providing the first visual evidence of a long-postulated physical link by which genes can receive mechanical cues from its microenvironment. Created by integrating six different imaging techniques, the images show thread-like cytofilaments reaching into and traversing a human breast cell's chromatin-packed nucleus.

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With the help of the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility’s Mira supercomputer, scientists have successfully designed and verified stable versions of synthetic peptides, components that join together to form proteins.

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Polyhedral boranes have become the basis for the creation of cancer therapies, enhanced drug delivery and new contrast agents needed for radioimaging and diagnosis. Now, a researcher at the University of Missouri has discovered an entirely new class of materials based on boranes that might have widespread potential applications, including improved diagnostic tools for cancer and other diseases as well as low-cost solar energy cells.

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For the first time, artificial intelligence has been used to discover the exact interventions needed to obtain a specific, previously unachievable result in vivo, providing new insight into the biophysics of cancer and raising broad implications for biomedicine.

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MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers have developed methods to observe gene editing in action, and they’re putting those capabilities to work to improve genetic engineering techniques.

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A collaborative effort to improve the development of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methodologies for evaluating "blood contacting" medical devices—receiving the Willem Kollf Award for top abstract at the ASAIO 2016 conference—is now reported in full in the ASAIO Journal, published by Wolters Kluwer.

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To detect an outbreak early — whether Ebola, Zika or influenza — healthcare workers must have a local, trustworthy diagnostic lab. For the past five years Sandia’s International Biological and Chemical Threat Reduction group has served as a trusted adviser for design of diagnostic labs around the world that are safe, secure, sustainable, specific and flexible.

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A new laboratory model enables tests of how developing fetal mammary tissue is affected by exposure to estrogen and estrogen-like chemicals such as BPA. Previous animal model research has suggested changes in fetal mammary tissue may be linked to higher risk of breast cancer in adulthood.

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Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have announced the development of the first stable semisynthetic organism.

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Utilizing the most rigorous testing methods to date, researchers from North Carolina State University have isolated additional collagen peptides from an 80-million-year-old Brachylophosaurus.

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Molecular biologists at UT Southwestern Medical Center have uncovered a new mechanism that choreographs a complex molecular dance by applying the latest in gene editing technology combined with a traditional method of making a microRNA target produce a fluorescent green protein.

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Biomedical engineers at Johns Hopkins report they have worked out a noninvasive way to release and deliver concentrated amounts of a drug to the brain of rats in a temporary, localized manner using ultrasound.

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Ronke Olabisi once dreamed of becoming an astronaut. Now she’s conducting research that could help space travelers and Earth-dwellers heal faster and stay healthy. “If healing people faster on Earth is going to be helpful, then it’s really going to be helpful in space,” said Olabisi, an assistant professor in Rutgers’ Department of Biomedical Engineering.

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Click here to go directly to the Physics News Source Sponsored by AIP.

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A new technique helps biologists tinker with genes, whether the goal is to turn cells into tiny factories churning out medicines or to study their effects on human health. The technique allows scientists to precisely regulate how much protein is produced from a particular gene.

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A team of chemists led by Northwestern University’s William Dichtel has cooked up something big: The scientists created an entirely new type of nanomaterial and watched it form in real time — a chemistry first.“Our work sets the stage for researchers interested in studying the fundamental properties of interesting materials and applied systems, such as solar cells, batteries, sensors, paints and drug delivery systems,” said Dichtel, the Robert L.

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Press registration is now open for the 2017 Experimental Biology meeting (EB 2017) to be held April 22-26 in Chicago. With more than 14,000 attendees and thousands of scientific sessions, EB 2017 is a research bonanza you won’t want to miss.

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In the January 20, 2017 issue of Science, University of Washington-led team, in collaboration with researchers at the DOE Joint Genome Institute, reports that structural models have been generated for 12 percent of the protein families that had previously had no structural information available.

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In the latest edition of the journal “Science”, Jürgen Knoblich, a leading authority on stem cells and deputy director of the IMBA (Institute for Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences), together with international experts, presents a first ethical guideline for research into human organ models. In the article, he also argues for critical and responsible engagement with the new technology.

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Novel mechanism in bacterial-fungal symbiosis could have biodiesel production applications

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/PRNewswire/ -- Science Exchange, the leading marketplace for scientific research, is excited to announce that the first five replication studies from the Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology (RP:CB) have been published in eLife today. Despite intense scrutiny around reproducibility in science, this project represents the first practical evaluation of reproducibility rates that may identify specific methods that result in reproducible studies. Unlike other assessments of reproducibility, the results of this project are openly accessible.

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The Searle Funds at The Chicago Community Trust has renewed its funding commitment to the Chicago Biomedical Consortium (CBC), an innovative research and education collaboration of Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Chicago that has helped establish the Chicago area as a leader in biomedical sciences.

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Modern genome sequencing methods used to measure the efficiency of synthesis of individual protein during cell division has found that the enzymes that make lipids and membranes were synthesized at much greater efficiency when a cell is ready to split.

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Researchers have made a ground-breaking discovery revealing new molecular information on how the brain regulates depression and anxiety. In so doing, they identified a new molecule that alleviates anxiety and depressive behaviour in rodents.

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Scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health have developed a new way to identify the state and fate of individual stem cells earlier than previously possible.

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In research that could one day lead to advances against neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, University of Michigan engineering researchers have demonstrated a technique for precisely measuring the properties of individual protein molecules floating in a liquid.

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For the first time, by using a path-breaking optical imaging technique to pinpoint cholesterol's location and movement within the cell membrane, chemists at the University of Illinois at Chicago have made the surprising finding that cholesterol is a signaling molecule that transmits messages across the cell membrane.

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Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have released the largest-ever single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) dataset of genetic variations in poplar trees, information useful to plant scientists as well as researchers in the fields of biofuels, materials science, and secondary plant metabolism.

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How big you are may be as important as what you look like, at least to immune system cells watching for dangerous bacteria and viruses.

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New technologies are developed at a rapid pace, often reaching the market before policymakers can determine how they should be governed. Now researchers have developed a model that can be used to assess emerging synthetic biology products to determine what needs to be done to inform future policies.

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A study by researchers from the labs of Prof Alexander Bershadsky at the Mechanobiology Institute, Singapore and Prof Gareth E Jones at King’s College London has revealed that a protein known as Arf1 plays a role in podosome formation by regulating the assembly of myosin-II within the cytoskeleton.

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Scientists at Van Andel Research Institute and Rockefeller University have successfully described a crucial structure involved in DNA replication, placing another piece in the puzzle of how life propagates.

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Ibrahim Tarik Ozbolat, associate professor of engineering science and mechanics at Penn State, has authored a new book titled “3D Bioprinting: Fundamentals, Principles and Applications,” published by Elsevier (Academic Press).

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A new streamlined process could quickly pare down heaps of algae species into just a few that hold the most promise for making biofuel.

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Scientists at the University of Chicago have created the first genetically modified animals containing reconstructed ancient genes, which they used to test the evolutionary effects of genetic changes that happened in the deep past on the animals’ biology and fitness.

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A University of Arkansas chemist and his collaborator at North Carolina State University have developed a new theory for explaining how proteins and other biomolecules function based on movement and change of shape and structure rather than content.