Forum for Science, Industry and Business

Identification of a protein important for Hepatitis B replication

In a paper in this month’s PLoS Medicine, researchers from the Genome Institute of Singapore describe the identification of a human cellular protein that has a significant effect on the replication efficiency of Hepatitis B virus. Lisa F. P. Ng and colleagues found the protein--hnRNPK--when they noted an association between one particular sequence in the Hepatitis B virus and high levels of the virus in some infected patients. They discovered that how well the virus replicated is determined by a combination of sequence differences of the virus and how well hnRNPK binds to the viral DNA.

Hepatitis B is a serious global public health problem; more than 350 million people have lifelong infections. Chronically infected people are at high risk of death from cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer, which both kill about 1 million people each year. Current antiviral therapies include lamivudine and alpha-interferon which also suppress viral replication by attacking the virus itself, but the identification of the action of this protein offers new therapeutic opportunities by targeting the human proteins that help the virus to replicate.

Paul Ocampo | EurekAlert!
Further information:
http://www.plosmedicine.org
http://www.plos.org

Im Focus: Temperature-controlled fiber-optic light source with liquid core

In a recent publication in the renowned journal Optica, scientists of Leibniz-Institute of Photonic Technology (Leibniz IPHT) in Jena showed that they can accurately control the optical properties of liquid-core fiber lasers and therefore their spectral band width by temperature and pressure tuning.

Already last year, the researchers provided experimental proof of a new dynamic of hybrid solitons– temporally and spectrally stationary light waves resulting...

Im Focus: Overdosing on Calcium

Nano crystals impact stem cell fate during bone formation

Scientists from the University of Freiburg and the University of Basel identified a master regulator for bone regeneration. Prasad Shastri, Professor of...

Im Focus: AchemAsia 2019 will take place in Shanghai

Moving into its fourth decade, AchemAsia is setting out for new horizons: The International Expo and Innovation Forum for Sustainable Chemical Production will take place from 21-23 May 2019 in Shanghai, China. With an updated event profile, the eleventh edition focusses on topics that are especially relevant for the Chinese process industry, putting a strong emphasis on sustainability and innovation.

Founded in 1989 as a spin-off of ACHEMA to cater to the needs of China’s then developing industry, AchemAsia has since grown into a platform where the latest...

Im Focus: First real-time test of Li-Fi utilization for the industrial Internet of Things

The BMBF-funded OWICELLS project was successfully completed with a final presentation at the BMW plant in Munich. The presentation demonstrated a Li-Fi communication with a mobile robot, while the robot carried out usual production processes (welding, moving and testing parts) in a 5x5m² production cell. The robust, optical wireless transmission is based on spatial diversity; in other words, data is sent and received simultaneously by several LEDs and several photodiodes. The system can transmit data at more than 100 Mbit/s and five milliseconds latency.

Modern production technologies in the automobile industry must become more flexible in order to fulfil individual customer requirements.

Im Focus: Sharp images with flexible fibers

An international team of scientists has discovered a new way to transfer image information through multimodal fibers with almost no distortion - even if the fiber is bent. The results of the study, to which scientist from the Leibniz-Institute of Photonic Technology Jena (Leibniz IPHT) contributed, were published on 6thJune in the highly-cited journal Physical Review Letters.

Endoscopes allow doctors to see into a patient’s body like through a keyhole. Typically, the images are transmitted via a bundle of several hundreds of optical...