Gene augmentation rescues cilia defects in light-sensing cells derived from patients with blinding disease. Researchers from the National Eye Institute (NEI) have developed a gene therapy that rescues cilia defects in retinal cells affected by a type of Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), a disease that causes blindness in early childhood. Using patient-derived retina organoids (also known as retinas-in-a-dish), the researchers discovered that a type of LCA caused by mutations in the NPHP5 (also called IQCB1) gene leads to severe defects…
High-performance laser offers a new kind of light source for multiphoton microscopy, requiring only 10 mW of power to image tissue at depths of over 600 µm. Two-photon microscopy (2PM) plays a reliably efficient role in noninvasive deep-tissue imaging in biomedical investigation. Since the invention of the two-photon microscope at the end of the 20th century, there has been a steady flow of related research advancing 2PM—from fluorophores to imaging methods and applications—in the fields of biochemistry and medicine. How…
Biomedical engineers and medical researchers at UNSW Sydney have independently made discoveries about embryonic blood stem cell creation that could one day eliminate the need for blood stem cell donors. The achievements are part of a move in regenerative medicine towards the use of ‘induced pluripotent stem cells’ to treat disease, where stem cells are reverse engineered from adult tissue cells rather than using live human or animal embryos. But while we have known about induced pluripotent stem cells since…
New nanoparticle shape can greatly enhance signals from multiple separate biomarkers at once, accurately detecting head and neck cancers without biopsies to improve global health. Researchers at Duke University have developed a unique type of nanoparticle called a “nanorattle” that greatly enhances light emitted from within its outer shell. Loaded with light scattering dyes called Raman reporters commonly used to detect biomarkers of disease in organic samples, the approach can amplify and detect signals from separate types of nanoprobes without…
Scientists from Rostock and Prague trace ship emissions over and in the Baltic Sea. Ship exhausts generated over the heavily trafficked Baltic Sea affect the marine environment and human health. Within the “PlumeBaSe”* project, researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW), the University of Rostock and the Charles University in Prague are now investigating how the emitted pollutants spread above and in the sea, how they change in the air and in the water, and what…
A team of researchers from Evonik and the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis (LIKAT) has once again achieved a breakthrough in the field of hydroformylation. Hydroformylation is one of the most important reactions in industrial organic chemistry. Unsaturated compounds are converted with synthesis gas to aldehydes and alcohols. It has now been demonstrated for the first time that the catalyst in this reaction is stable even at low pressures. This opens up a cost-effective and environmentally friendly route to aldehydes and…
The results of the international study involving the Cluster of Excellence PMI also point to a previously unknown process in the development of this chronic inflammatory bowel disease. The special features of the study are its size as well as its methodological approach. In order to detect changes in the genome of patients with Crohn’s disease, an international consortium compared DNA samples from around 30,000 people with Crohn’s disease and a control group of 80,000 people without this disease. The…
Researchers find the spiral may be feeding star formation in a nearby stellar nursery. Nature likes spirals – from the whirlpool of a hurricane, to pinwheel-shaped protoplanetary disks around newborn stars, to the vast realms of spiral galaxies across our universe. Now astronomers are bemused to find young stars that are spiraling into the center of a massive cluster of stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The outer arm of the spiral in this…
Advance could lead to more environmentally friendly rocket fuels. Researchers have developed an analytical instrument that uses an ultrafast laser for precise temperature and concentration measurements of hydrogen. Their new approach could help advance the study of greener hydrogen-based fuels for use in spacecraft and airplanes. “This instrument will provide powerful capabilities to probe dynamical processes such as diffusion, mixing, energy transfer and chemical reactions,” said research team leader Alexis Bohlin from Luleå University of Technology in Sweden. “Understanding these…
Scientists have solved the century-old mystery of a supergene that causes efficient cross-pollination in flowers. The results show that sequence length variation at the DNA level is important for the evolution of two forms of flowers that differ in the length of their sexual organs. The study is published today in Current Biology. Gardeners and botanists have known since the 1500s that some plant species have two forms of flowers that differ reciprocally in the length of their male and…
Cell membranes transition seamlessly between distinct 3D configurations. It is a remarkable feature that is essential for several biological phenomena such as cell division, cell mobility, transport of nutrients into cells, and viral infections. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and their collaborators have recently devised an experiment that sheds light on the mechanism by which such processes might occur in real time. The researchers looked at colloidal membranes, which are micrometre-thick layers of aligned, rod-like particles. Colloidal…
LiBinfinity project aims to develop an energy-efficient recycling concept for lithium-ion batteries – kit will evaluate recyclates. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is largely involved in a new battery recycling project. LiBinfinity focuses on a holistic concept for recycling materials of lithium-ion batteries. A mechanico-hydrometallurgical process without energy-intensive process steps will be transferred from the lab to an industry-relevant scale. KIT will then check whether the recycled materials are suited for the manufacture of new batteries. The Federal Ministry for…
… yielding insight into evolution, food security and climate change. The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced that it will support the efforts of a collaborative group of researchers, led by Elizabeth Vierling, Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who plan to spend the next four years investigating the role that mitochondria play in plant productivity. This research has immediate implications for ensuring that agriculture can meet the challenge of global warming. “One of the things…
“We put nanotubes inside of bacteria,” says Professor Ardemis Boghossian at EPFL’s School of Basic Sciences. “That doesn’t sound very exciting on the surface, but it’s actually a big deal. Researchers have been putting nanotubes in mammalian cells that use mechanisms like endocytosis, that are specific to those kinds of cells. Bacteria, on the other hand, don’t have these mechanisms and face additional challenges in getting particles through their tough exterior. Despite these barriers, we’ve managed to do it, and…
LJI scientists uncover major clue toward developing a pan-flavivirus therapy. Zika virus has a trick up its sleeve. Once inside the body, the virus likes to make a bee line for dendritic cells, the cells we rely on to launch an effective immune response. “Dendritic cells are major cells of the innate immune system,” says LJI Professor Sujan Shresta, Ph.D., a member of the LJI Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine Research. “How is this virus so clever that it’s…
Strange diamonds from an ancient dwarf planet in our solar system may have formed shortly after the dwarf planet collided with a large asteroid about 4.5 billion years ago, according to scientists. The research team says they have confirmed the existence of lonsdaleite, a rare hexagonal form of diamond, in ureilite meteorites from the mantle of the dwarf planet. Lonsdaleite is named after the famous British pioneering female crystallographer Dame Kathleen Lonsdale, who was the first woman elected as a…
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