How to Make Underwater Glue with a Biomed Engineer
Michigan Technological University
Hematology researchers have developed a novel genetically engineered clotting factor that can control bleeding in animal models. If the factor proves effective and safe in humans, it may provide a quick-acting countermeasure for surgery patients and others vulnerable to serious bleeding as a result of new blood-thinning drugs.
According to studies, approximately one out of every 40 individuals in the United States is a carrier of the gene responsible for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a neurodegenerative disease that causes muscles to weaken over time. Researchers at the University of Missouri developed a new molecule in April 2014 that was found to be highly effective in animal models exhibiting SMA. Now, testing of that compound is leading to a better prognosis for mice with the disease and the possibility of potential drugs that will improve outcomes for patients with SMA.
The precise mechanisms involved in tomato softening have remained a mystery until now. Research led by Graham Seymour, Professor of Plant Biotechnology in the School of Biosciences at The University of Nottingham, has identified a gene that encodes an enzyme which plays a crucial role in controlling softening of the tomato fruit.
Scientists at The University of Nottingham have demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to selectively sequence fragments of DNA in real time, greatly reducing the time needed to analyse biological samples.
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Three University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have won a prestigious, five-year grant to establish the National Center for Quantitative Biology of Complex Systems, which will develop next-generation protein measurement technologies and offer them to biologists nationwide.
Many times experimental data was not reproducible even though all variables within the experimental procedure stood up to scrutiny. But was this really the case?
The introduction of this new screw cap container represents the latest significant innovation within the Eppendorf Tubes® 5.0 mL system.
Eppendorf’s new refrigerated Centrifuge 5920 R combines extraordinary high capacity with enhanced temperature management in a very compact and ergonomic product design.
Festo features at AACC 2016, July 31- Aug. 4 in Philadelphia, the company’s automation solutions for clinical diagnostic equipment. Festo automation lowers manufacturer engineering costs and boosts diagnostic speed and overall performance. (Festo AACC Booth #3939)
Medical Electronic Systems (www.mes-global.com) is a Los Angeles based technology company specializing in rapid, automated semen analysis for the human and the veterinary markets. The MES line of CE and FDA cleared Sperm Quality Analyzers, complementary testing kits and disposable testing supplies are sold through an extensive network of international distributors. MES is ISO certified as a medical manufacturer and has wholly owned distribution offices in America, Europe, China and Israel.
The Clinical Laboratory Automation Module (CLAM-2000) is a fully integrated sample pretreatment module for LC-MS. The system automatically performs all of the processes necessary for analyzing blood and other biological samples, from scanning in information from the blood collection tubes to sample pretreatment and LCMS analysis.
JBEI scientists have shown that adding carbon dioxide gas during the deconstruction phase of biofuel production successfully neutralized the toxicity of ionic liquids. The technique, which is reversible, allows the liquid to be recycled, representing a major step forward in streamlining the biofuel production process.
Building lab instruments for chemistry and biology experiments used to be an expensive, time consuming process only done by scientists with specialized training. A 3D printed, Lego-like system of blocks designed by a UC Riverside team is changing that. As well as real research applications, the system can be used for STEM education, where students gain both an engineering experience by building the instruments and a science experience as they use them.
Routine scientific procedures using millions of animals are still being authorised when there is a tried and tested alternative, according to a group of scientists investigating the production of antibodies.
Zebrafish are becoming more and more popular as a research model for human disease. Along with mice and humans, they are one of the most commonly studied animals in biomedical research.
To help stakeholders in government and business make smart decisions about the best types of land and local climates for planting bioenergy crops, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Argonne National Laboratory are using computational modeling to predict which counties could see increases in soil organic carbon from cultivation of crops for biofuels. The results are contributing to DOE’s third Billion-Ton report expected later this year.
The 2016 Billion-Ton Report, jointly released by the U.S. Department of Energy and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, concludes that the United States has the potential to sustainably produce at least 1 billion dry tons of nonfood biomass resources annually by 2040.
Researchers funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) have created a new type of tissue chip that can be more widely used for drug testing. Engineering the chips as a silk gel circumvents many of the problems with existing devices and could potentially be an implantable treatment itself.
A new study shows that the unique properties of graphene and graphene foam could one day be used to regenerate 3-dimensional tissues and organs for implantation into the human body.
Removing oxygen atoms is vital to turning biomass into biofuels. Scientists discovered how water interferes with two oxygen-removal paths by creating a highly stable intermediate that costs energy to move along the reaction path
Researchers developed an alternative fatty acid synthase (FAS) system in which enzymes from other organisms work with the native FAS in E. coli to improve the microbe’s capacity for chemical production.
Ionic liquids (ILs) prepare plant matter to be broken into its component sugars, which can be used in creating biofuels. However, the availability and high cost of petroleum-derived ILs pose challenges. Synthesizing new ILs directly from biomass “wastes” could help.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Chris Todd Hittinger and colleagues conclude in the July 6, 2016 edition of the journal Public Library of Science Genetics that the story of hybridization that produced the lager yeast is far more complex and potentially richer than first imagined.
Researchers look into the practice of alley cropping, planting long-term tree crops alongside short-term cash crops, for sustainability.
Researchers have developed an E. coli-based transport capsule designed to help next-generation vaccines do a more efficient and effective job than today’s immunizations. The research, described in a study published July 1 in the journal Science Advances, highlights the capsule’s success fighting pneumococcal disease, an infection that can result in pneumonia, sepsis, ear infections and meningitis.
Ideally, injectable or implantable medical devices should not only be small and electrically functional, they should be soft, like the body tissues with which they interact. Scientists from two UChicago labs set out to see if they could design a material with all three of those properties.
Scientists at Miami University and DOE’s Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory found that adding a specific nutrient stimulates the bacteria to transform nearby iron that, in turn, reduces the chromium to a much less mobile material.
The U.S. bioethanol industry depends largely on turning a certain sugar into the simple two-carbon alcohol, the biofuel ethanol. Researchers engineered a heat-loving microbe to produce not only ethanol, but also a range of other alcohols.
Researchers at IMBA – Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences have identified a protein that disperses chromosomes during cell division, as Nature reports.
Engineering graduate students, one of whom lost his hands to meningitis, design and build a foot-activated video game controller.
Johns Hopkins University engineering students working to develop a better suit to protect health care workers in Ebola outbreaks have developed prototypes for a more comfortable hood and face mask that make breathing easier, and for a battery-powered system that curbs humidity in the suit.
The mitochondria within a cell are small structures that play an outsized role. They convert oxygen and simple sugars into ATP, the cell’s source of energy, actions essential to metabolic pathways and a cell’s very survival. “Given the importance of mitochondria in human health, it is important to understand the mechanisms underlying their ability to cope with protein-folding stress.
By studying the fruit fly, Kansas State University researchers have found a connection between a gene called clueless and genes that cause Parkinson's disease.
Scientists are getting closer to directly observing how and why water is essential to life as we know it.
Artist’s representation of how the silver nanoparticles are made. Animation: Rick Groleau Synthetic biologists at Harvard Medical School and Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have devised a new, more environmentally sustainable way to produce antimicrobial silver nanoparticles at the mesoscale using biological rather than inorganic chemical methods.
Scientists found that the electronic arrangement and the small molecular separation distances give bacterial pili an electrical conductivity comparable to that of copper, valuable insights for those interested in eventually constructing non-toxic, nanoscale sources of electricity.
A University of Arkansas chemistry professor has received a $400,000 award from the National Science Foundation to investigate a roadblock in the harvesting of biomass from perennial plants for the purpose of creating a source of renewable energy.
A model that predicts outbreaks of zoonotic diseases -- those originating in livestock or wildlife such as Ebola and Zika -- based on changes in climate, population growth and land use has been developed by a UCL-led team of researchers.
Tufts University microbiologist Cecilia A. Silva-Valenzuela, Ph.D., has been named one of ten Latin American Fellows in the Biomedical Sciences by The Pew Charitable Trusts. Working in Andy Camilli’s lab, she is studying the use of phages to help stop the spread of cholera.
A new study shows that increased demand for biomass for energy in Europe, through intensified use of existing forests, could lead to loss of biodiversity and high competition for wood between sectors, and proposes policies to help preserve biodiversity while also limiting greenhouse gas emissions.
Once inside the human body, infectious microbes like Salmonella face a fluid situation. They live in a watery world, surrounded by liquid continually flowing over and abrading their cell surfaces--a property known as fluid shear.
A new UW-Madison analysis of a group of bacteria called Streptomyces reveals the way some strains of the microbe developed advanced abilities to tear up cellulose, and points out more efficient ways we might mimic those abilities to make fuel from otherwise unusable plant material.
Cheap cameras on drones can be used to measure environmental change which affects billions of people around the world, new research from the University of Exeter shows.
Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute’s Swiss Light Source in Villigen, Switzerland, have developed a new design for X-ray spectrometers that eschews a commonly utilized component to lowers overall production costs and increase the efficiency of x-ray flux, which may lead to faster acquisition times for sample imaging and increased efficiency for the system. This is essential for biological samples which may be damaged by continued x-ray exposure.
Dr. Tim Anderson at Texas Biomedical Research Institute and Dr. Phil LoVerde at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio have been awarded a $3.5 million grant over the next five years by the National Institutes of Health to understand the genetic changes in the schistosome parasite that lead to drug resistance.
A new disposable battery that folds like an origami ninja star could power biosensors and other small devices for use in challenging field conditions, says an engineer at Binghamton University, State University of New York. Seokheun “Sean” Choi, assistant professor of computer and electrical engineering at Binghamton University, along with two of his students, developed the device, a microbial fuel cell that runs on the bacteria available in a few drops of dirty water. They report on their invention in a new paper published online in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics.
To better understand the pathogenic bacteria Staphylococcus aureus and develop more effective treatments, University of California San Diego researchers examined the Staph “pan-genome” — the genomes of 64 different strains that differ in where they live, the types of hosts they infect and their antibiotic resistance profiles. This effort, published June 6 by PNAS, places all Staph genes into one of two categories: the core genome or the dispensable genome.